Request By:
Mr. Herman Brockman, Coordinator
Jackson County Fiscal Court
Jackson County Courthouse
McKee, Kentucky 40447
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By William S. Riley, Assistant Attorney General
In your recent letter to Mr. Charles Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General, it is stated that effective July 15, 1980, KRS 262.200(4) as amended by Chapter 199, Acts of the 1980 General Assembly, says in part ". . . from general funds or from the levy of a millage tax on all real property within the boundaries of the county, the total not to exceed twenty-five thousand dollars in any one fiscal year . . . ."
KRS 262.200(4) previously read ". . . either from general funds or from the levy of a millage tax on real property . . . equal to not more than two cents (2 ) per acre, or part thereof . . . ."
For the past several years Jackson County Soil Conservation District has levied the two cents (2 ) per acre tax on all taxable real estate parcels of five acres or more.
Three questions are asked.
(1) How does HB 44 (KRS 132) relate to the above statute?
Answer: Section 132.023 of the Kentucky Revised Statutes (1)(a)(b) provides that notwithstanding any provisions to the contrary, no taxing district, other than the state, counties, school districts, cities and urban-county governments shall levy a tax rate for 1979-80 which would produce more revenue, exclusive of revenue from net assessment growth than would be produced by application of the maximum tax rate that could be levied in 1978-1979 to the 1978-1979 assessment.
Subsection (b) provides in essence that in succeeding years no taxing district other than the state, counties, school districts, cities and urban-county governments shall levy a tax rate which will produce more revenue, exclusive of revenue from net assessment growth, than would be produced by application of the tax rate as levied in the preceding year's assessment.
In
Rea v. Gallatin County Fiscal Court, Ky., 422 S.W.2d 134 (1967) the Court held that the General Assembly could levy rates which would lessen taxes and that such an act was not unconstitutional. The same reasoning would apply to this situation. HB 44 controls the amount of revenue that can be raised by the Jackson County Soil Conservation District to the amount that was produced in the previous year.
(2) How will real property not previously on the soil conservation tax base (houses and lots, under five acres) be treated -- as old or new property?
Answer: KRS 260.180 sets out how additional territory is to be organized. There is no provision for differentiating between old and new property in the district. Whatever rate is applied would be applied to all the property in the district whether it had been in the district for some years or whether it had been recently incorporated into the district.
(3) How will increases in assessments made by the PVA on old properties affect the Jackson County Soil Conservation District's tax rate?
Answer: If property values are increased there should be a corresponding decrease in tax rate to stay within the guidelines of HB 44.