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majority of Oldham County residents would favor a real estate tax to help
improve overcrowded schools, according to a recent survey commissioned by
citizens' group Oldham Ahead.
Of 400 people surveyed, 75 percent would favor the tax, the survey results
said.
"It reinforces the importance the people in the community place on
the quality of the public school system," Oldham Ahead President
Prewitt Lane said. "If we don't do something to keep up the schools,
property rates will fall."
A majority of residents also would favor using money gathered from a real
estate tax to improve roads and utilities, the survey said.
Oldham Ahead commissioned Louisville firm Horizon Research International
to do the study late last year to measure how residents who are at least
21 years old feel about the community. They survey was conducted between
Nov. 15 and Dec. 4, 2001. It has a 5 percent margin of error.
"We heard a lot of people make statements like, 'The people in the
county want this,'" Lane said, but there wasn't a way to measure
those statements. Now there is.
Overall, resident rated Oldham County as an excellent place to live.
The quality of life in the county has remained a large drawing card for
people. In the survey, 80 percent of the respondents rated Oldham's
quality of life either very good or excellent.
"Unequivocally, they love it," Jim Wilhelm, senior vice
president of Horizon Research, said Tuesday at a press conference to
announce the results of the survey.
In results that could be encouraging for backers of the "moist"
vote petition circulating in the county, 66 percent of those polled say
they would be in favor of allowing liquor-by-the-drink sales in
restaurants. Proponents of liquor sales in Oldham County have said that
taxes generated from sales would help reduce the dependence on property
taxes to pay government bills.
The survey also showed that residents seemed to recognize the high cost of
the county's growth, and the need to balance out the county's tax base.
The swelling of the county's population to nearly 50,000 residents in the
last 10 years has had a profound effect on the county's infrastructure.
With new residents coming in to experience that high quality of life,
county leaders have fought a difficult battle to keep up with the
increased cost of services.
Leaders have attempted to maintain the quality of life and services its
residents are used to, but Fiscal Court is using reserves to balance the
budget and schools are 110 percent over capacity.
In the survey, 70 percent of the respondents said they feel residential
growth occurs too fast. Even more - 84 percent - said commercial growth is
happening at either too slow or an adequate pace.
The county gets about 85 percent of its tax revenue from residential
property taxes. County officials have said they would like that figure to
drop to about 65-70 percent, with the balance made up by commercial and
industrial taxes.
News editor Rebecca Yonker contributed to this story.
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