Wednesday, October 4, 2000

The Fayette County Board of Education will conduct its final two public hearings on a proposed property tax increase Thursday at 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. at the school district's administrative offices.

These hearings are mandated under the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, passed by the 2000 legislature.

According to school finance director Jim Stephens, the Board of Education will reduce the maintenance and operations tax rate from 19.84 mills charged in 1999 to 19.061 mills in 2000. This reduction is not sufficient to reduce taxes to the extent required under the Taxpayer's Bill of Right.

This new law requires that millage rates be rolled back by an amount sufficient to offset any property tax increases necessitated by reassessments of properties during the year. This computation would require the board to reduce the millage to 18.709. This cut would necessitate the elimination of about $1 million in planned programs from the approved fiscal year 2001 budget.

The law requires the board to reduce the bond millage rate from 3.69 mills to 3.43 mills, but the board proposes to reduce the bond tax millage to 3.325 mills due to an unprogrammed gain in the debt service fund balance in the previous year. This move, in combination with the maintenance and operations millage rate decrease, will bring about a reduction in total millage to 22.386 mills, a reduction of 1.1444 mills.

During the budget development process which culminated in June with the FY 2001 school budget of $124 million, the board cut approximately $4 million in budget requests, according to Stephens. Out of that final amount, $107 million goes for employee salaries and benefits. This leaves about $17 million for maintenance and operations, which includes heating and cooling the schools, general maintenance work, the purchase of books and supplies for 20,000 students and a set aside of $2.5 million to match state construction grants for middle school expansions.

Stephens noted that the board must also deal with reductions in state funds totalling $1.5 million in local fair share and $1.3 million in the state equalization grant, to be distributed to poorer school districts. There are also numerous adjustments required by the newly adopted A-plus Education Reform Act.

The board considered three proposals before deciding to reduce the millage by 1.144 mils, rather than the 1.544 mils that would have occurred with full implementation of the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights.

If the board did not reduce the tax rate at all, it would have collected $2.2 million more than its budget had anticipated.

"The Fayette County Board of Education has weighed its options carefully and has set the course to go with a tax levy that will support minimum requirements of the school system over the upcoming school year," Stephens said.

A proposed $65 million bond issue, if passed in the November election, will impose one mill or less on the taxes to be levied next year.

Back to News Home Page | Back to the top of the page