The Hardin County Fiscal Court met for their second meeting of the month Tuesday.
Jeff Stone with ESCI presented findings and recommendations from the emergency services study commissioned by the county to evaluate current county services and projecting needs based on anticipated growth in the county, with a primary focus on fire and EMS. Stone said most of the county volunteer fire departments are not currently ready for 24-hour service, the majority of the fire apparatuses need to be replaced, and EMS likely needs additional units to cover demand. ESCI recommended immediate goals such as a collective strategic plan and evaluating of funding, and provided a recommendation on a potential levy to cover funding for emergency services.
“We delineated doing three cents for residential, five cents on the farm, and six cents commercial, and that would produce about $3.5 million, so just over three times as much funding right now, and what that would allow is the county could divide that money how they wanted,” Stone said.
Magistrate Chris Yates introduced a written resolution stating that the county does not wish to alter its current lease agreement on the Pearl Hollow Landfill or sell or transfer any landfill property. Judge/Executive Keith Taul said he was frustrated the resolution was presented in a way that he was not able to discuss it with the magistrates ahead of time, and said the county has been exploring options involving property near the landfill in order to fund county parks efforts. Taul said there is interest from potential stakeholders but the resolution ends discussion.
“I believe that’s the purpose of this, is to end that process, and I feel bad for the citizens of the county that we’re not going to be able to utilize the lands,” Taul said. “It’s going to sit there like it is right now, not used. And for what purpose? I have no idea.”
Yates said the magistrates have had time to review the proposed plan and were not interested in pursuing it. Magistrate Aaron Pennington said he agreed with Yates and said it was time for the county to focus on other tasks.
“Instead of kicking the can down the road and saying ‘hey, let’s try to figure this out in a few months’ when we’re going to make a decision that we’ve already expressed that it’s not a good idea, let’s not continue to go through,” Pennington said. “I think it’s important. Let’s go ahead and end it and let’s focus on things like the budget and other things that we need to focus on.”
The resolution was approved on a 6 to 3 vote.
The Hardin County Fiscal Court will next meet April 8.
