With payroll tax proposal, Fayette school district makes another unforced error | Opinion
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Fayette County Schools proposed raising payroll tax to cover $16M budget gap.
- Tax hike drew backlash for timing, lack of transparency and unclear necessity.
- Budget shortfall could probably be managed without new tax on workers.
Bless the Fayette County school administration’s heart, as we like to say.
Never has such a worthy organization been so fond of shooting itself in the foot.
As many of us know by now, the school system has a proposed $16 million shortfall in its proposed $848 million budget next year. Over the long Memorial Day weekend, officials slipped an item into the board agenda for Tuesday night to vote to ask the Fayette fiscal court to raise Fayette’s payroll tax by from .5 percent to .75 percent to fill that gap.
The current resolution makes it look as though some bright bulb figured out school districts with populations above 300,000 are allowed to take .75 percent in occupational taxes, as Jefferson County schools do. So Fayette needs to join the club.
Or something like that.
Anyway, this latest move has ignited a predictable firestorm on social media, leaving us, once again with more questions than answers.
School officials declined to answer any of those questions on Tuesday morning when reporter Valarie Honeycutt Spears tried to follow up from her weekend scoop.
But I still have plenty.
First off, $16 million out of $817 million is a really small amount, a shortfall that could be easily filled with tinkering and attrition. Why raise taxes to do it? Because they can?
Why would the school district want to burn so much of its dwindling political capital on such a small amount?
As I said in a previous column, Fayette residents have been hugely supportive of the schools, approving property tax hikes in 2018 and 2022. But they are tired of our residential tax assessments increasing every year in a hot real estate market, and weary of higher prices on everything, including their homes.
Testing their patience would seem like a bad idea. With this system, they are able to get more money every year without raising rates. But it seems like it’s never enough.
Why slip it into the agenda in what looks like a furtive manner? Why not hold community meetings to discuss whether raising a new and different tax is a good idea? How much would the increase bring in?
In late July, the Fayette Property Valuation Administration will certify Fayette tax rolls, and Fayette County will learn how much more they will be getting in property taxes. Yes, the budget has to be finalized by June 30, but they could make it all work without a new tax.
Since 2015, the schools’ real property tax revenue has gone up 72 percent, according to the PVA office.
One of the biggest complaints about Fayette County is its lack of transparency on the millions of dollars they receive every year. Presumably, we’ll find out Tuesday night why things have gone down the way they have, but once again the district looks tone deaf and surreptitious, two things our public schools don’t need.
Under Superintendent Demetrus Liggins, the schools are making slow but steady progress. Fayette has no schools on the state crisis list, achievement gaps are closing, and the schools are fully staffed schools with more experienced teachers.
But a last-minute agenda item to raise taxes on Fayette workers obscures that good news in the minds of voters. It’s another unfortunate, unforced error in a district that can’t afford them.
This story was originally published May 27, 2025 at 2:00 PM.
