Request By:
Benjamin J. Lookofsky
Graves County Attorney
Graves County Court House
Mayfield, KY 42066
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By William S. Riley, Assistant Attorney General
In your recent letter it is stated that the Graves County Library District was formed pursuant to KRS 173.450 and subsequent statutes. Under this statute the district was created by a referendum in which the voters of Graves County voted the establishment of a library district with a tax rate of 1.5 per $100 assessed valuation of property in the county for the purposes of the district.
The question is whether House Bill 44, passed by the 1979 Extraordinary Session of the General Assembly, applies to the Graves County library tax rate.
KRS 132.023(1)(a) provides that notwithstanding any statutory provisions to the contrary no taxing district other than the state, counties, school districts, cities and urbancounty governments shall levy a tax rate for 1979-80 which will produce more revenue exclusive of revenue from net assessment growth than would be produced by application of the maximum tax rate that could have been levied in 1978-79 to the 1978-79 assessment. Under subsection (2) no taxing district other than the state, counties, school districts, cities and urban-county governments shall levy a tax rate within the limits imposed in subsection (1) of this section which exceeds the compensating tax rate defined in KRS 132.010, until the taxing district has complied with the provisions of subsection (3) of this section. Subsection (3) provides for notice of hearing.
KRS 132.010(6) defines compensating tax rate to mean that rate which rounded to the next higher 1/10 of 1 per $100 of assessed value and applied to the current year's assessment of the property subject to taxation by a taxing district excluding new property and personal property produces an amount of revenue approximately equal to that produced in the preceding year from real property. In no event shall the compensating tax rate be a rate which when applied to the total current year's assessment of all classes of taxable property produces an amount of revenue less than was produced in the preceding year from all classes of taxable property.
The answer to your question is yes, the provisions of the statutes outlined above apply to the tax rate to be set by the Graves County Library District for the new year.