Flaws may have killed Lexington tax increase recall. House approves bill to fix that.

The obstacles that Dan Rose and Ron Vissing said they encountered when they tried to recall a school safety tax in Fayette County last year are at the heart of a bill approved by the state House of Representatives.

The Fayette County Public Schools board last year approved a school tax increase to add a 5-cent property tax for every $100 of property value. The increase funds a $13.5 million comprehensive initiative to make Fayette schools safer with measures ranging from more metal detectors to more mental health professionals. An effort to gather enough signatures to put Fayette County’s schools safety tax to a public vote failed when leaders could not gather enough signatures within 45 days.

State Rep. Stan Lee, R-Lexington, said Tuesday in a floor speech for House Bill 49 that “whether you agreed with that tax increase or not”, current law makes it virtually impossible for a county the size of Fayette or Jefferson to engage in the tax recall process.

Lee said House Bill 49 would change the existing state law for Fayette and Jefferson counties alone, improving the process to get petition signatures that would lead to a recall. The bill applies to Urban County Governments and local consolidated governments.

Currently under the law for a property tax recall, a committee has 45 days to obtain the signatures of 10 percent of the voters in the last presidential election. The legislation would give people an additional five days — for a total of 50 — to get signatures. House Bill 49 would also allow for signatures to be gathered electronically, which is not allowed currently.

If paper petitions are used, it would allow voters from more than one precinct to be on the same sheet of the petition paper. Under the current law, a person can only sign a paper petition from a specific precinct. That was cumbersome in the Fayette County effort, Lee said.

Last week, Rose, a Lexington attorney, and Vissing testified on behalf of the bill when it was approved by the House Local Government committee after being revised. Rose told lawmakers they were simply trying to modernize the state law on tax increase recalls.

Even though the revised bill is not as strong as what was originally proposed, Rose said Wednesday in an interview, he said “it is an improvement and it certainly helps Fayette County.”

House Bill 49 now goes to the state Senate.