City negotiating DCPS annexation to be ‘more palatable’ for employees

June 1, 2019 | 3:30 am

Updated June 1, 2019 | 5:38 pm

At their last meeting, the Owensboro City Commission heard the first reading of a set of ordinances that will annex nine Daviess County Public Schools facilities — six schools and three departments– into the City of Owensboro. While this would have no financial impact on DCPS, a nonprofit exempt of paying taxes, it would affect 1,057 of the 1,800 employees at the district.

Negotiations

Both DCPS Superintendent Matt Robbins and City Manager Nate Pagan said the two parties have had ongoing discussions since the May 21 City Commission meeting.

Robbins would only comment broadly on those conversations. He said his goal was to ensure DCPS teachers, no matter which school they worked at, received equivalent pay.

According to Pagan, negotiations have focused on making the annexations “more palatable” for DCPS employees.

But when Owensboro Times spoke to Mayor Pro Tem Larry Maglinger and asked about negotiations between the City and DCPS, he indicated a revenue sharing mechanism had been discussed similar to what the City has arranged with Daviess County Fiscal Court, should the annexation ordinances pass.

Pagan told Owensboro Times in mid-May that the agreement with Fiscal Court would allow the occupational taxes incurred from the employees at those nine properties to be split.

“We would rebate to the County half of their occupational tax rate, not to exceed 1 percent,” Pagan said. “Our intent was not to take money out of the County’s pocket.”

Pagan said the split is not even, however, as the City will require more money to provide services to those nine properties. He estimates that the City will take in $505,000 in additional occupational taxes, before services are paid out and the County will take in $263,000.

According to Pagan, should the ordinances pass, this will be the first partnership between the City and County governments of its kind.

The safety issue

Pagan said one of the main motivations for the decision is school safety. The six schools chosen for annexation will benefit from having closer proximity to City-run safety personnel, such as Owensboro Police Department and Owensboro Fire Department, he said.

“I have data from the fire department that looks at the likely response times if the schools are in the city versus what their likely response times are now, based on GIS data,” Pagan said. “In every case, the response times, if those schools were in the city, were half or less than half of what it would be otherwise.”

Pagan said in the public safety realm, both the City and the County spend millions of dollars to shave seconds off of response times, noting dispatch and assets costs.

Pagan said while those same studies were not conducted on police service to county schools, OPD has more officers on the street at any given time.

But Robbins said the system’s relationship with county departments, especially the Daviess County Sheriff’s Office, have been well cultivated over the last 20 years.

“The Sheriff’s Office has worked with us to create a model for lockdown training,” Robbins said, noting that Senator Max Wise came to Daviess County to observe this training, which was taken back to his state legislative committee on school safety to develop Senate Bill 1.

Robbins worries about confusion as to which law enforcement agencies will respond to which schools and potential communication breakdowns that could ensue. He gave the example of Highland Elementary, proposed for city annexation, and Meadow Lands Elementary, which is set to remain in the county. The two are just over a mile away from each other, but would have different law enforcement agencies and fire departments responding in cases of emergency.

“There has to be a line somewhere,” Pagan said.

The City should eventually serve Meadow Lands, Pagan said, adding that it would be in the best interest of the students to have faster response times by police and fire services.

“But the development hasn’t gotten there yet,” he said of Meadow Lands’ location. “It we [annexed] Meadow Lands at this point, it would be exacerbating the problem we are trying to solve. I think it should eventually get City service, and probably will as development occurs out that direction.”

Robbins said should these schools switch to city police, Kentucky State Police will no longer cover DCPS schools. He also added that what is actually needed more than anything are more school resource officers, but the funding required employee SROs is not available.

County pockets and future annexations

Sean Land, the attorney representing the board of education, said his clients feel singled out.

“It’s hard to not feel like you’re getting picked on when the only properties the City is seeking to non-consensually or forcibly annex are owned by the board of education,” he said. “We’re talking about 170 acres owned by a single property owner.”

Land contends that there are a number of other properties that could benefit the City to annex. He said there are several county pockets in close proximity to the six proposed schools.

Owensboro Times located a GIS map on the Owensboro Metropolitan Planning Commission website that shows city and county boundary lines. This map showed numerous county pockets, including a six-building medical complex on new Hartford Road, a convenience store on Southtown completely surrounded by city property on all four sides and two new retail centers on Highway 54.

Mayor Pro Tem Larry Maglinger’s business Custom Audio and Video is also located in a county pocket.

Maglinger said his business had not been brought up in the commission’s annexation discussions, despite its location in a pocket of Daviess County. Maglinger said he recalls the City possibly approaching him in the past about annexing his business, but couldn’t confirm when or if this in fact happened.

“[My employees] pay City, County, Henderson, Paducah and Hancock County taxes because they work in different places,” he said. “Every week we have to pay different occupational taxes.”

Pagan said annexations are an ongoing business of the City of Owensboro

“It is always a priority,” he said. “At any given time we probably have eight to 10 to 12 businesses we are discussing annexation with. It is typically new development projects. Sometimes we seek them out. Sometimes they seek us out.”

Pagan said the City is not discussing annexing any other businesses or county pockets at this time.

June 1, 2019 | 3:30 am

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