School superintendents from across the county were on hand for Tuesday night’s Fayette County Board meeting to discuss how an error in the equalized assessed valuation for the 2016 tax cycle is affecting their districts. They are not the only ones effected, however, as Bellwether consultant Kat Lange informed the council that this is something that will affect not just this year’s budget but next year as well. The school districts asked that the tax mailings scheduled to go out today be delayed while all entities work on a solution to the problem. With the normal property tax process including work by the county clerk’s office before heading to the treasurer’s office for mailing, Lange says that will rollback the process and will impact not just the county, but several taxing districts.
While Lange, the school superintendents and others in the county have been working on the problem vigorously the last two weeks, they have found that after the initial error, there was an error discovered in the fix for that initial EAV error. With schools requesting delayed tax mailings and a chance to amend their tax levies and the fact that so many tax districts being involved, Lange says they are looking realistically at around a 60-day delay in tax distribution.
When asked by county board member Chad Austin if she had all the information needed to continue pressing forward on the issue, Lange says she does for the most part as she is just waiting on some verifications from the Department of Revenue and other clerks and entities. County Board Chairman Jeff Beckman thanked Lange for sticking with it and working so hard to help get the matter resolved.