Request By:
Mr. Bernard G. Watts
City Attorney - St. Regis Park
436 South Fifth Street
Louisville, Kentucky 40202
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: William P. Sturm, Assistant Attorney General
In your recent letter to the Attorney General you state that the City of St. Regis Park uses the Jefferson County property assessments as the basis for its city taxes. You also state that the city operates on a fiscal year where the tax bills would be sent out on July 1. In your letter you have stated that there is a possibility that the county tax assessments may not be certified by June 20, and therefore the city may not be able to prepare its tax bills by July 1, 1980. You requested advice concerning the alternatives available to the City of St. Regis Park for issuing 1980 property tax bills.
After an examination of the statutes, it appears that there are basically two alternatives available to the city if Jefferson County property tax assessments are not certified in time to issue bills on July 1. KRS 133.185 provides that no tax rate for any taxing district imposing a levy upon the county assessment shall be determined before the assessment is certified by the Department of Revenue to the county court clerk. Also, there is no statutory provision in KRS Chapters 92, 132, or 133 to provide for the sending out of two bills, one based on the 1979 assessment, and a second billing based upon the 1980 assessment.
The alternatives available to the City of St. Regis Park appear to be the following:
1. Delay issuance of the tax bills until the Jefferson County property tax assessment which is the basis of St. Regis Park's tax bills has been certified by the Department of Revenue.
2. The city might appoint its own assessor and issue its own property assessments in accordance with KRS 92.520.
It appears that either of these alternatives would comply with the applicable statutes regarding the issuance of tax bills by cities of the sixth class.