LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- The Jefferson County Board of Education has directed Superintendent Marty Pollio to challenge the determination that a petition filed by opponents of its property tax rate increase had enough valid signatures for ballot placement.
The school board voted 6-0 Tuesday to initiate legal action after deliberating behind closed doors for nearly an hour. Board member Linda Duncan abstained.
The board's vote authorizes Pollio to "take all steps necessary, including the filing of legal action, to challenge" the petition's certification by Jefferson County Clerk Bobbie Holsclaw, board member James Craig said in his motion.
Pollio must submit a legal challenge on the board's behalf by Thursday. Jefferson Circuit Court will ultimately determine the validity of Holsclaw's determination under state law.
Members of the group "No JCPS Tax Hike" submitted a petition with 40,320 signatures July 10 to Holsclaw's office, which verified 38,507 of those signatures a month later.
The petition needed 35,517 valid signatures to allow voters in the Jefferson County Public Schools taxing district to pass the proposed 7-cent increase on the district’s property tax rate of 73.6 cents per $100 of assessed value.
But an analysis commissioned by the Jefferson County Teachers Association called thousands of the signatures into question.
JCTA President Brent McKim said he shared that information with Pollio, school board members and other district leaders ahead of Tuesday's meeting.
"We certainly believe that the school board should challenge the validation process and decision of the clerk because we're finding hundreds of redundant names that were couldnted multiple times, sometimes up to four times, and we're finding individuals whose names were accepted even though the date of birth and the address don't match," he said.
The district referred to the union's petition analysis in a news release following the board's vote Tuesday. JCPS is "confident" that the petition didn't have enough valid signatures to initiate a voter recall, Pollio said.
"If the courts disagree with us, I look forward to making the case to Jefferson County voters that JCPS has a critical, immediate need for new revenue so our students have academic opportunities, classrooms and athletic facilities that are similar to those in other Kentucky public school districts," he said.
McKim said the union hired an analyst with New Albany, Indiana-based HALO Group to review the petition submitted to Holsclaw’s office against a copy of a local voter registration file.
That analysis found the clerk’s office apparently verified 1,255 duplicate signatures and 3,765 signatures with information that does not match local records, McKim said.
"Our data analyst who reviewed the file said giving the benefit of the doubt in every case and erring on the side of accepting signatures that are reasonably close, the number of signatures is still significantly below what it needed to be accepted," he said.
McKim also questioned the integrity of the anti-tax group’s collection of electronic signatures. The online petition lacked typical security measures to ensure entries weren't automated, he said.
"You certainly don't want a process that invites people to be able to easily enter someone else's name and other information," he said. "But that's what this was."
Some apostrophe marks in names included in the petition were replaced with the same three random characters, suggesting a formatting error when copying names from a document and pasting them into an online database, McKim said.
“A sample of five such names were identified and called,” JCTA’s analysis report says. “Only two had correct phone numbers. Both indicated they had not signed the petition.”
The union analysis also found names of dead voters on the petition, which the report indicated could be another sign of fraud.
McKim noted that the name of a man who died in 2018 was included in the petition and that it was one of the signatures ultimately rejected by the county clerk’s office.
A spokesman for Holsclaw’s office said he believed most duplicate signatures were caught in the verification process.
If those reviewing the petition could identify that a voter was registered in the JCPS taxing district “with certainty,” they allowed for mistakes on mailing addresses, variations for first names and typos, spokesman Nore Ghibaudy said in a message to WDRB News.
The property tax rate increase, which can be subject to recall since projected revenue is estimated to exceed 4% annual growth, is expected to generate more than $51.5 million more in property tax receipts, a 9.5% uptick.
District leaders have said JCPS needs more property tax revenue to help build new schools, renovate current buildings and provide more resources for students and teachers.
Opponents have questioned the district's decision to raise property tax rates, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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