to be so expended. In 1952, the constitutional provision requiring per capita expenditures was eliminated, thus strengthening the role of the General Assembly in its duty to provide for an efficient system of common schools, as provided in Section 183. In an apparent response to that latest constitutional amendment, and in an attempt to equalize inequities in the educational efforts and abilities to encourage more financial input and effort by local school districts, the General Assembly enacted the so-called Minimum Foundation Program [FN4] [hereinafter MFP]. To qualify as a participant in this program, a district was required to levy a minimum real property tax of $1.10 per $100 of assessed value in the district. The maximum tax was set at $1.50 per $100.00 of assessed value (1 1/2 % of the total assessed value of the real property in the district). Most districts levied the maximum rates, because the assessed values were very low. The assessments ranged from 33 1/3 % of the fair cash value of the property to as low as 12 1/2 % of that value. The median statewide assessment rate was 27%. [FN4. KRS 157.310-.440. Its stated legislative purpose was "... to assure substantially equal public school educational opportunities." KRS 157.310. A further description of the MFP appears, infra.] As a result of this law and diverse local assessments of fair cash value, a lawsuit was filed directly attacking this legislation and the problem of built-in disparity in local school tax levies. Our Court's predecessor, the Court of Appeals, in the case of Russman v. Luckett, Ky., 391 S.W.2d 694 (1965), declared that Section 172 of the Kentucky Constitution requires property to be assessed at 100% of its fair cash value. The mandate of the Court directed the Revenue Cabinet to see that all property in the Commonwealth was so assessed. The ink was barely dry on this opinion, when, pursuant to a call for a special session by the Governor, the General Assembly enacted H.B. 1, known pleasantly as the "rollback law." Its effect was to countermand and negate the effect of Russman. This law reduced the tax rates on property proportionately to offset the increase in assessment required by this Court. It is certainly arguable that, by enacting the "rollback law," the General Assembly continued, or even exacerbated, the inequities that Russman intended to correct. Specifically, H.B. 1 reduced the school, county and city property tax revenues to the 1965 level, except for "net assessment growth" resulting from new property. [FN5] In deference to the education problem, the bill permitted local school districts to take two (2) one-time only 10% increases in their tax levies, for their 1967 and 1968 revenues. The bill virtually froze the revenues available to local school districts and created the ominous spectacle of different maximum tax rates for the then 180 local school districts in Kentucky. [FN5. Examples include a vacant lot having a house built on it or a farm being developed into a subdivision.] In an attempt to enable more local tax efforts the General Assembly at its regular session in 1966 enacted legislation [FN6] which enabled local school districts to levy one of three specialized permissive taxes: (1) an occupational tax on wages and profits; (2) a tax on gross utility receipts, and (3) an excise tax on income. All of these taxes were, however, specifically permitted to be recalled by the voters. [FN7] [FN6. KRS 160.597.]

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