Published: June 10, 2009 09:24 am      

Snubbed — 06/10/09

Without debate or vote, fiscal court rejects quest for tax

The manner in which the Boyd County Fiscal Court rejected a request by the Boyd County Soil Conservation District for a one- to two-cent per $100 valuation property tax is appalling.

At the very least, members of the conservation district’s board of directors and the district’s lone employee deserved the right to make their case for a tax before the members of the fiscal court, and Boyd County Judge-Executive William “Bud” Stevens and the three elected commissioners should have taken a public vote on the tax request.

Instead, no formal vote was ever taken on the request, and the issue was never discussed at a fiscal court meeting. Instead, Stevens simply announced during the June 2 fiscal court meeting that the court had decided that it could not justify putting another tax on county residents and the conservation district’s request would not be approved.

And how did Stevens know the other members of the fiscal court would not support the tax? If the request were discussed informally among Stevens and the three commissioners, that could well be a violation of the state’s Open Meetings law.

When conservation district board member Jesse Allen Ross approached the fiscal court about the tax, Stevens said, “We all just in passing said, ‘We can’t raise taxes.’ That was the extent of it; there was no discussion because there was no need to. We couldn’t raise taxes.”

Maybe not, but a few comments made in passing with “no discussion” does not constitute a vote.

The conservation district also deserved the opportunity to address the fiscal court concerning its request. Soil Conservation District Chairman John Hammond and Stephanie Young, the district’s only employee, said they would have attended the June 2 fiscal court meeting if they had known the tax request was going to be discussed. But they were never notified that the fiscal court had already made its decision without voting on the issue.

In a May 22 editorial concerning the conservation district’s request, we confessed to knowing little about the district and its work, and added, “Both those involved with the operation of the conservation district and residents who have benefited from the district’s services need to fully explain to the uninformed masses exactly what the district does and how it will use the tax revenue.”

Unfortunately, supporters of the district were never given that opportunity. They were denied their day in fiscal court. At the very least, they deserved that — even if the three commissioners and Stevens already knew how they would vote.

We agree with fiscal court members that this is a lousy time to be raising taxes, but they sure took the wrong approach in rejecting the soil conservation district’s request.