160.048 Transfer of area containing school outside district. (1) The General Assembly hereby finds that from time to time various school boards, in the exercise of their administrative discretion, have determined that their school districts would be most efficiently administered if one (1) or more of the district's schools were constructed and operated on land located outside the school districts' boundaries. The General Assembly further finds that this has been desirable and in furtherance of an efficient system of common schools. As urbanization increases, and school districts throughout the Commonwealth become more densely populated, available school sites within such districts will proportionately diminish, and it will with increasing frequency be necessary to construct schools on land not within the district of the school board constructing such schools. When a school is so located, it is more efficient for the school district constructing the school, but it is less efficient for the statewide system of common schools and for the children residing in the immediate neighborhood of the new school, who reside in a different school district, and therefore must be transported to other, more distant schools. This situation results in an inefficient utilization of state and local school funds and school facilities, and is a result of the artificially-drawn school district boundary lines. The General Assembly further finds that the discretionary method of transfer presently provided by KRS 160.045 is not adequate to assure an efficient operation of the common schools, and that it is desirable to provide for mandatory transfer of such areas. Pursuant to section 183 of the Kentucky Constitution, the General Assembly declares that such situations are special situations and require special treatment. It is the intent of the General Assembly to provide by this statute a special method whereby such areas may be transferred to the school district operating the school or schools. (2) If seventy-five percent (75%) of either the registered voters or property owners in an area adjacent to a school district other than the district in which such area is located and in which area there is located a school owned and operated by such adjacent school district petition the school board of the school district which owns and operates such school and the school board of the school district in which such area is located for the transfer of such area from the school district in which it is located to the school district which owns and operates such school, then such area shall be so transferred. (3) The effective date of such transfer shall be sixty (60) days after the date on which the petition is filed with the two (2) school boards; personal delivery of said petition to any member of the school board or to the superintendent of the school district shall constitute "filing" for purposes of this section. Provided, that if such effective date falls during a term of the school district in which such area is located, the two (2) school boards involved may, by agreement, defer the effective date of such transfer until the end of said term. (4) The terms and conditions of such transfer shall be determined in the manner provided for the determination of the terms and conditions of transfer under KRS 160.045, except that the chief state school officer, the Kentucky Board of Education, and the respective reviewing courts shall have no power to disapprove such transfer. (5) Upon such transfer, the recipient district shall assume a portion of the bonded indebtedness of the losing district, as provided in KRS 160.065; such bonds shall remain the obligation of the issuing agency, and shall not be affected in any way by such transfer, except that each year the recipient district shall pay to the losing district a sum of money sufficient to make the payments on the portion of such indebtedness assumed by the recipient district, and such annual payments shall continue until all of the bonded indebtedness outstanding at the time of the transfer is paid in full. (6) The method of transfer provided in this section shall be an alternative method to that set forth in KRS 160.045, and this section shall have no effect whatsoever on KRS 160.045. Effective: July 15, 1996 History: Amended 1996 Ky. Acts ch. 362, sec. 6, effective July 15, 1996. -- Amended 1990 Ky. Acts ch. 476, Pt. IV, sec. 227, effective July 13, 1990. -- Amended 1978 Ky. Acts ch. 155, sec. 82, effective June 17, 1978. -- Created Ky. Acts ch. 349, sec. 1.