Request By:
Honorable Caywood Metcalf
Garrard County Attorney
Courthouse
Lancaster, Kentucky 40444
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; Joseph R. Johnson, Assistant Attorney General
In your letter to this office dated September 10, 1981, you stated that in August, 1981, the Garrard County Fiscal Court imposed a three cent (3 ) levy per $100.00 assessed valuation on all property for a public health tax. The County Board of Health, with the approval of the Department for Human Resources, presented to the Fiscal Court a Resolution asking that a special ad valorem health tax be imposed. Your question is whether the tax in question which was imposed for the first time is subject to the public hearing and recall provisions of House Bill No. 44. In our opinion, the tax was legally enacted and House Bill No. 44 is inapplicable.
In the event a county has not elected to create a public health tax district, KRS 212.750 provides that such district is created by operation of law. KRS 212.755 authorizes the county fiscal court to impose a public health tax of up to four cents (4 ) per $100.00 of full value assessed valuation upon the request of the Board of Health with the approval of the Department for Human Resources. The statute contains no provision for a public hearing or for a recall vote.
In two (2) prior opinions of this office, OAG 79-344 and OAG 79-365, while we concluded that House Bill 44 does apply to an increase in rates by existing health tax districts which already had established rates, they did not address the problem of a health taxing district which imposes a rate for the first time. Of course, if in succeeding years the health district wishes to raise the rate, House Bill 44 would apply.
In conclusion, we are of the opinion that when the fiscal court imposes a health tax rate for the first time which is within the four cents (4 ) per $100.00 assessed valuation as set forth in KRS 212.755, such tax is not subject to a hearing and recall vote.