Did a Kentucky city owe the county PVA a fee if it reused the PVA's prior-year property assessments?

Plain-English summary

A county property valuation administrator asked whether cities could stop paying the statutory assessment fee yet use the PVA's prior-year figures as the basis for their own current assessments. The AG concluded that actual use of the county assessment counted as an election to use it under KRS 132.285(1), even without a formal election in the current year. That use triggered the fee. The opinion did not assume every city that stopped paying had reused the data; only a court could conclusively determine that factual question in a particular dispute.

Currency note

This opinion was issued in 1992. Subsequent statutory amendments, court decisions, or later AG opinions may have changed the analysis. Treat this page as historical context, not current legal advice. Verify current law before relying on any specific rule, deadline, or remedy mentioned here.

Historical summary

Cities preparing property assessments

The AG read “elects to use” in terms of what the city actually did. A city using the PVA's old figures as the basis for its current year assessment owed the fee under the opinion, even if it had announced that it would not formally use the county assessment that year. A city doing genuinely independent assessments was a different factual situation.

Property valuation administrators

The AG said the statute's payment requirement compensated the PVA for assessment work a city used. It declined to assume liability merely from a city's earlier use and later withdrawal. Because it answered that fee question, it did not reach the requester's separate question about refusing a city's later formal election to use county assessments.

Common questions

Could a city avoid the PVA fee by saying it no longer used county assessments while copying last year's figures?

The AG said no if the old county assessment actually formed the basis of the current city assessment. It treated that use as the relevant election under KRS 132.285(1).

Did every city that stopped paying the PVA fee still owe it?

No automatic conclusion followed. The AG said liability depended on how much the city used county assessment information rather than doing its own independent assessment.

Who could settle a dispute over whether a city reused the PVA's work?

The opinion said that factual question could be conclusively determined only in a court of law.

Background and statutory framework

KRS 132.285(1) required a city electing to use the county assessment to pay the PVA office each fiscal year under the statutory formula. The AG read the provision's purpose as compensating the office for assessments the city used and rejected an interpretation that would allow alternating formal paid use and informal unpaid reuse of the same work. The original opinion's fee rate was a 1992 figure and is preserved in its text below.

Citations and references

• KRS 132.285(1): city election to use county assessment and annual payment requirement.

Source

• Landing page: https://www.ag.ky.gov/Resources/Opinions/Opinions/OAG92-070.htm

Original opinion text

OAG 92-70

April 24, 1992

Denise Harper-Angel

Jefferson County Property Valuation Administrator

504 Fiscal Court Building

Louisville, Kentucky 40202

Dear Ms. Harper-Angel:

In your recent letter to the Attorney General you describe a situation in which some cities in your county allegedly are attempting to use your office's property assessments without paying for them. You point out that KRS 132.285 allows cities to use the PVA's assessments upon payment of a fee of one-half of one cent per one hundred dollars of assessment. You state that some cities elect to use your assessment and pay the fee, then elect not to use your assessment the following year. In the year for which the cities do not pay for your assessment, you state that the cities simply use your assessment for the prior year, which they already have, with or without minor modifications. In this way the cities halve their cost of obtaining assessments. You ask the following questions:

1. Is my office entitled to collect the statutory user fee from such cities in the second year (and subsequent years) when they are, in fact, using my office's assessment a second, third, or fourth time? (We have informed the cities that our position concerning such on-again, off-again users is that, if the city, in fact, uses my office's figures in the subsequent year, then it must pay the statutory user fee for that year regardless of the lack of a formal election.)

2. If your opinion is that my office is not entitled to collect the user fee from these cities in years subsequent to the first year unless they formally elect by ordinance to use the county assessment, may my office refuse to accept from any city which has thus gone off the users' list a subsequent election again to become a formal user under the statute? This might help to break the cycle of avoidance of the statutory fee.

The language in KRS 132.285(1) obligating cities to pay the PVA for assessments reads:

Each city which elects to use the county assessment shall annually appropriate and pay each fiscal year to the office of the property valuation administrator for deputy and other authorized personnel allowance, supplies, maps and equipment, and other authorized expenses of the office one-half of one cent for each hundred dollars of assessment . . . .

An extraordinarily rigid construction of the statute would lead to the conclusion that the obligation to pay for assessments applies only to a “city which elects to use the county assessment,” and that a city may avoid paying for an assessment merely by officially “electing” not to use the county assessment for the current year while carrying over assessments from the prior year. We do not believe that such a construction is warranted. Quite obviously the statute is intended to compensate the PVA for the cost of making assessments of property located in and taxable by the city. If a city could simply oscillate between official paid use of the PVA's assessment and unofficial unpaid use of the same assessment for a subsequent year, then the resulting abuse would undercut the purpose of the statute.

We believe that a city “elects” to use a PVA's assessment if, in fact, the city uses the PVA's assessment as the basis for its own assessments, even if the assessment used is for a prior year. Thus, if a city notifies the PVA that it will not use the PVA's assessment for 1992, and then uses the PVA's 1991 assessment as the basis for its 1992 assessment, then the city has nevertheless “elect[ed] to use the county assessment” and must pay the appropriate fee.

Whether the city in fact continues to use an old county assessment, however, could be conclusively determined only in a court of law. We cannot say that every city that discontinues use of the county assessment must nevertheless continue to pay for it; the city's liability would be dependent on the extent to which it used the PVA's assessment information rather than conducting independent assessments of its own.

Our response to your first question renders a response to your second question unnecessary.

Sincerely,

Chris Gorman

Attorney General

Ross T. Carter

Assistant Attorney General