Court Opinion

ID: 9648336
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 14:14:48.366919+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:58.978489
License: Public Domain

STEPHENS, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
I do not disagree with the majority’s general description of the relationship of the department of revenue and the locally elected property valuation administrator. Nor do I disagree with the obvious constitutional mandate that all property within this Commonwealth be assessed at fair cash value.
However, I have a strong parting of the ways with the majority’s interpretation of the statutory scheme setting up the procedure when one or more local PVAs disagrees with the department of revenue as to the local assessment.
The argument of the PVAs is that when there is a bona fide disagreement as to an assessment, the department of revenue has the duty to make its own assessment. KRS 133.150, et seq. In disagreeing, the majority hangs its hat on KRS 133.040. That statute, after directing the PVA to complete the “tax roll of all property in his county,” requires that the PVA shall file a recapitulation of it with the department of revenue. Within 30 days after receiving it, “the department of revenue shall direct the PVA to make changes that are necessary to correct the assessment.”
*488The majority says that this statute requires the department of revenue to “order the PVAs to correct” local assessments when such differs with that of the department. Extending the logic of this interpretation, the department would be required to mandate the assessment of the PVA to be changed if the department’s assessment were lower, or higher. Such mandated changes would be made even if the department’s figures were arrived at improperly, were illegal, arbitrary and capricious. Under this view, a local PVA could be required to answer, in court, for the possible illegal or bad faith acts of a department of revenue official. I suggest that the general assembly of Kentucky never intended such a situation.
KRS 133.150, 133.160 and 133.170 provide the legislature’s simple answer to a situation where there is an honest disagreement between the department of revenue and the PVA.
The “department of revenue shall have power to increase or decrease the aggregate assessed valuation of the property of any county or taxing district thereof ... (t)he department of revenue shall fix the assessment of all property at its fair cash value ... . ” KRS 133.150 (emphasis added). This unequivocally requires the department to make its own assessment.
KRS 133.160 then provides a specific, detailed procedure whereby the affected county shall be notified of the reassessment action of the department.
“Notice of assessment raised by department — To whom given — Contents.— When it is contemplated by the department of revenue that it will be necessary to raise the assessed valuation of property in any county, it shall give notice of the contemplated action to the county judge/executive, the superintendent of any school district affected by such action, the mayor of any city which is affected and which has adopted the assessment, and to the taxpayers of that county through the county judge/executive, who shall pose the notice sent him on the courthouse door and certify to the department of revenue that this has been done, and it shall fix a time and place for a hearing which may be in Frankfort or any convenient place in or nearer the county seat.”
The majority finesses the clear impact of these statutes by saying that they do not relieve the PVA of following the department’s directives and that they do not restrict the department from achieving fair cash value assessments solely pursuant to their terms. KRS 133.150, et seq., are described as “one weapon in the department’s arsenal.” I cannot believe that the procedure set out in KRS 133.150, 133.160 and 133.170 is a “weapon” of enforcement. It is, rather, a mandate of the legislature requiring the department of revenue to make its own assessment. The other methods of enforcements described in the majority opinion, viz., KRS 132.690(3), 132.370(4), and Commonwealth ex rel. Luckett v. Monson, Ky., 465 S.W.2d 719 (1971), are more than sufficient to enforce the department of revenue’s power over the local PVAs.
I believe that in a case of an honest difference of opinion, in a case of good faith disagreement, the legislature, by enacting KRS 133.150, mandated that the department of revenue make its own assessment. The detailed procedure set out in KRS 133.-160 corroborates this view. Would the legislature do a vain act in enacting these statutes? Would it have been guilty of overkill in providing another “weapon” to hammer the PVAs? I believe not.
In the oral argument before us, counsel for the department of revenue stated that the enforcement procedures previously described were sufficient to carry out the authority set out in KRS 133.040. He stated that KRS 133.150, 133.160 and 133.170 were “too expensive and too cumbersome for the department.” Very candidly, counsel admitted that, as a practical matter, the procedure established by the legislature in KRS 133.150, et seq., was “impractical and couldn’t be done.”
This statutory scheme was established by the legislature of the Commonwealth. It is not for this court to determine its cost, its *489practicability or, indeed, its wisdom. It is our duty to effectuate it. Counsel’s argument, to me, is tantamount to a concession that the procedure is proper and appropriate in this case. If the department of revenue has the facilities and expertise (and the legislature has said that it does) to develop an assessment in each of the 120 counties of this Commonwealth, it certainly has the ability to make its own assessments pursuant to KRS 133.150, et seq.
I would affirm the Court of Appeals and direct that the department of revenue make its own reassessment, following the procedure set out by statute.
STEPHENSON, J., joins in this dissent.