LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Voters in the Jefferson County Public Schools taxing district will get an opportunity to approve or deny the proposed 7-cent property tax rate increase.
Jefferson County Clerk Bobbie Holsclaw's office verified 38,507 signatures of the 40,320 submitted by the group No JCPS Tax Hike on July 10. The committee needed 35,517 signatures to place the proposed tax rate increase on the Nov. 3 ballot.
Increasing the property tax rate from 73.6 cents per $100 of assessed property value to 80.6 center per $100 is expected to generate $51.5 million more in revenue for Kentucky's largest school district, a 9.5 percent uptick from last year.
"Our goal is to roll back the tax hike and to try to ensure that taxpayers are getting their money's worth from JCPS, so that all students in JCPS get a good education," said Theresa Camoriano, a spokeswoman for the anti-tax group and president of the Louisville Tea Party. "That is not currently the case."
JCPS will have 10 days to challenge Holsclaw's finding that the petition received enough signatures to place the tax rate increase before voters.
Renee Murphy, the district's communications director, said JCPS is reviewing Holsclaw's findings.
Brent McKim, president of the Jefferson County Teachers Association, hopes the district ultimately challenges the petition.
Groups of teachers and others have been contacting those listed on the petition, which JCTA obtained in response to a records request. They've found that some indicated they never signed the document, McKim said.
Many of the signatures were obtained electronically, which McKim said could have been provided by people other than those listed on the petition through a publicly available voter file that Holsclaw's office used to verify the signatures.
JCTA is checking the petition against a local voter file and so far has found that of 56 people contacted by the union, 12 said they had no idea their names were included and wanted them removed, he said.
"We had a number of people who indicated they were very troubled that their names were used without their permission," McKim said. "... Based on what we're seeing, I hope the district challenges because there's no way to know without actually checking with people that the names that were submitted were actually put in online by the people whose name it's supposed to be."
One couple, both retired teachers, were "very distraught" when told their names appeared on the petition opposing the JCPS tax rate increase, he said.
Callers read from a script and record the person's response, he said.
But Camoriano called the JCTA's verification methods a "totally unacceptable" form of harassment.
Some people may have told JCTA callers no simply to get them to "buzz off," she said.
"The fact that somebody says no doesn't mean they didn't really sign it," Camoriano said.Â
"It's hard to know what's going to happen next when you're dealing with an organization as big and powerful as JCPS, but so far as I can tell, everything we've done is appropriate and proper," she said. "It should stand up. I have not seen anything that gives me any concern."
McKim, however, said JCTA callers are not harassing anyone.
"The only way to determine if people whose names were submitted actually signed the petition would be to call some of them and find out," he said. "... That's in no way harassment."
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