LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — Fayette County Public Schools is considering raising the occupational license tax despite a community work group's recommendations to use contingency funds instead.
The school board received widespread backlash earlier this year after voting to consider an occupational tax hike to cover a $16 million deficit in the budget. That vote was later ruled illegal by the attorney general, forcing the board to pause their plans.
In response, FCPS created a community work group of business and education leaders to address the budget issues. The group presented their ranked recommendations at a nearly four-hour meeting Monday night.
"FCPS is facing a severe financial crisis," said one public commenter at the meeting.
"Please don't continue to insult our community's intelligence," said another attendee.
The work group, which included representatives from Commerce Lexington, spent three sessions analyzing the budget and searching for solutions.
"The members representing Commerce Lexington really rolled up their sleeves and dug into the budget, and they came to the conclusion, as did the other members of the work group, that using a chunk of the contingency fund to plug the budget hole and then make some modest targeted cuts that don't impact student success would be able to accomplish closing the budget shortfall without increasing taxes," said Carla Blanton, board chair of Commerce Lexington.
Despite these recommendations, the board quickly dismissed using the contingency fund and most other suggestions. Instead, they set a public hearing to discuss raising the occupational license tax—which was ranked lowest on the work group's list of recommendations.
"We were very disappointed and disheartened that the recommendations of the work group were very quickly dismissed through that presentation," Blanton said.
Blanton believes the work group's position on raising taxes was misrepresented to the board during the meeting. She also noted there's confusion over how much money is actually in the contingency fund.
"The Fayette County Public Schools are committed to coming back next week and letting us know what that amount is. They don't apparently know what that amount is right now,” said Blanton. “To spend that contingency, it's my understanding they have to have board approval and that never happened. We remain confident that using the contingency is still a viable option for plugging some of this budget hole.”
According to Blanton, Commerce Lexington remains committed to working on both short-term and long-term solutions to address the budget deficit.
The school board will hold a public hearing on September 5 to discuss raising the occupational license tax.
