Written by Carolyn Hankins Wolfe, Boone County Board of Education, Elected Member
As Boone County discusses the school district’s property tax levy, there is a reasonable question taxpayers should be asking: If property values in Boone County have increased so dramatically over the last decade, why does the school district need additional revenue?
It is a fair question, and frankly, it is one I have asked myself. The answer requires looking beyond a single year’s tax rate or school budget and examining what has happened to the way Kentucky funds Boone County Schools over time.
In 2014–15, Boone County received approximately $45.7 million in net SEEK funding from the state. For 2026–27, that amount is projected to be approximately $36.8 million. Before we even account for inflation, Boone County is projected to receive nearly $9 million less in net SEEK funding from the Commonwealth than it did 12 years ago.
Inflation makes that comparison even more significant. Over roughly the same period, Kentucky’s SEEK base per pupil increased from $3,911 to $4,626, an increase of approximately 18%, while the cumulative increase in the cost of goods and services has been much greater. Boone County Schools is paying 2026 prices for employees, transportation, utilities, insurance, technology, construction, special education services and virtually everything else necessary to educate students, while the state’s net contribution to our district is lower in actual dollars than it was more than a decade ago.
That brings us to property values, because this is where the situation understandably becomes confusing. Boone County has experienced tremendous growth. Homes that may have sold for $150,000 a decade ago can now sell for twice or triple that. New homes, commercial development and increasing assessments have significantly expanded Boone County’s property tax base. It is completely reasonable to assume that Boone County Schools must therefore be collecting substantially more local revenue.
We are. But that is only half of the equation.
Kentucky’s SEEK formula considers a community’s local property wealth when determining how much state funding a school district receives. As Boone County’s tax base has grown, the formula has determined that Boone County has a greater ability to fund its schools locally. The amount attributed to Boone County as its local contribution was approximately $38 million in 2014–15. For 2026–27, it is approximately $74.3 million.
At the same time, the state’s share has declined.
In 2014–15, the state accounted for approximately 63.5% of Boone County’s SEEK guaranteed base. Today, the state’s share is approximately 41.4%. Put another way, the state/local split has moved from roughly 63% state and 37% local to 41% state and 59% local.
That is a fundamental shift in who is carrying the financial responsibility for Boone County’s public schools.
So yes, Boone County’s growth and increasing property values have generated substantially more local revenue. But we are not simply adding that new revenue on top of a stable contribution from Frankfort. As our ability to generate money locally has increased, Kentucky has increasingly expected Boone County taxpayers to assume a larger share of the cost of educating Boone County students.
That changes the question from simply, “Property values went up, so where did all the money go?” to also asking, “As Boone County generated more money locally, how much of the responsibility did the state shift back onto Boone County?”
None of this means school spending should be exempt from scrutiny. Quite the opposite. Boone County Schools has a large budget funded by taxpayers, and taxpayers have every right to expect Board members to question expenditures, demand accountability and look for opportunities to operate more efficiently.
There are formal safeguards as part of that accountability. Boone County Schools undergoes an independent third-party financial audit every year. The results are presented publicly at a Board of Education meeting, and the completed audit is published for the public to review. That provides an independent examination of the district’s finances, accounting practices and financial controls.
An audit, however, does not mean every spending decision is automatically the right one. Board members still have a responsibility to examine how money is being spent, whether individual expenditures are necessary and whether our priorities reflect the needs of students. There are expenditures I question, and I believe that is part of the job. Financial scrutiny should be part of how we govern the district every year, not something that happens only when we discuss a tax levy.
If I believed Boone County Schools’ fundamental financial problem was mismanagement, I would never support asking taxpayers for additional revenue. I would support fixing the management problem first.
But after looking at the long-term funding numbers, I cannot reasonably conclude that mismanagement explains the larger problem. Our net SEEK payment from Kentucky is lower in actual dollars than it was 12 years ago, while virtually every major cost of operating a school district has increased.
Public education also has a financial reality that is sometimes overlooked in conversations about efficiency: educating children requires people. We need teachers in classrooms, bus drivers transporting students, instructional assistants supporting children with disabilities, custodians maintaining buildings, food-service employees feeding students, counselors supporting them and thousands of other employees who make a school district function. Technology can help those employees do their jobs, but it cannot replace the human infrastructure necessary to educate more than 20,000 Boone County students.
There is also an important distinction between approving a levy that generates additional revenue and simply “raising the tax rate.” The proposed real-property tax rate is 64.6 cents per $100 of assessed value, compared with 65.5 cents last year. The proposed rate itself is lower than last year’s rate. The district can generate additional revenue at a lower rate because the total assessed value of property in Boone County has increased.
That does not mean homeowners are imagining the impact of rising assessments. If the assessed value of your home increases enough, you can pay more even when the tax rate decreases. Families are feeling increased housing costs, insurance costs, grocery costs and utility costs, and elected officials should acknowledge that reality. But a lower tax rate applied to a larger property tax base is different from simply saying the Board is increasing the tax rate.
And this is where the reality of serving on a local school board gets lost.
The way Kentucky has structured this system puts local school boards in a no-win situation. We are asked to balance taxpayers who are struggling with increased assessments and household costs against employees facing those same pressures and students who need qualified teachers, instructional assistants, transportation, special education services, mental-health supports and other resources.
Too often, what reaches the Board table is a “Sophie’s Choice” between competing harms, rather than a choice between a good option and a bad one.
That is exactly what this year’s levy decision looks like.
The decision is not simply whether to “raise taxes.” The proposed rate is already lower than last year’s. The choice is whether to adopt that lower rate or take the compensating rate, which would lower the rate further but create an operating deficit significant enough that approximately 42 positions could be affected immediately.
Forty-two positions may sound like an abstract budget number. In practical terms, it is roughly the equivalent of the teachers and paraeducators staffing nearly an entire elementary school.
Those positions represent adults working directly with children. Eliminating them does not eliminate the work. It can mean larger class sizes, fewer adults supporting students and greater demands on the educators who remain.
That is where the responsibility of a school board member has to come into focus.
I understand why homeowners want the lowest possible tax bill. I am a taxpayer, too. Those concerns are legitimate and should not be dismissed. But Board members also have to look at what happens after the tax decision is made.
If choosing the compensating rate creates a deficit that could translate into approximately 42 lost positions, I cannot look only at which option produces the lowest tax rate. I also have to ask: What does this decision do to the children sitting in our classrooms?
That is ultimately the lens I believe school board members have to use.
Losing educators is not in the best interest of our children.
I welcome scrutiny of our budget, conversations about efficiency and questions about individual expenditures. Taxpayers deserve all three. But we cannot “efficiency” our way out of a funding structure in which the state’s net SEEK contribution has declined from approximately $45.7 million to $36.8 million while the cost of educating students has continued to rise. At some point, cutting costs stops meaning eliminating waste and starts meaning eliminating people, programs and services students rely upon.
School Board members do not get the luxury of making these decisions in a vacuum or choosing an option where nobody feels the impact. We have to balance the burden placed on taxpayers with our obligation to provide the people and resources necessary to educate Boone County’s children.
The local tax base has grown. So has the local responsibility. And when a tax decision could mean losing the equivalent of nearly an entire elementary school’s worth of educators, the impact on children cannot be a footnote in the debate.
It has to be at the center of it.
