Situation

In 2020, the Board considered at length, and ultimately decided to approve, a tax increase to improve outcomes for tens of thousands of local school children. The increase would generate more than $50 million in additional revenue for the Board each year going forward.

Challenge

The Board needed assistance throughout the process of considering and adopting the increased tax levy, which Wyatt provided at every step. Later, the levy came under attack by a citizens group which sought to place the measure up for potential recall at the next general election.

Approach

The Board suspected the citizens group had not gathered sufficient signatures for the matter to in fact be placed on the ballot and authorized the filing of a lawsuit by Wyatt to challenge the County Clerk’s certification of the matter to appear on the ballot.

Result

In just 70 days, Wyatt’s lawyers filed suit, gathered and analyzed thousands of documents, took numerous depositions, and presented a series of winning arguments to the Court that led to the invalidation of thousands of signatures that had been offered in support of the recall petition. Just before the election, it was determined that the threshold number of valid signatures had in fact not been met and the tax levy would not be subject to electoral recall, securing the increased revenue for the children of Jefferson County.

On June 16, 2022, the Supreme Court of Kentucky unanimously confirmed the decision of the Circuit Court that an insufficient number of valid signatures had been submitted for the issue to be placed on the ballot for potential recall.