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First reading of 2024-2025 Hardin County budget passes by 5-4 vote

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The first reading of the 2024-2025 county budget was held during the Hardin County Fiscal Court’s first meeting of the month Tuesday.

Hardin County Judge-Executive Keith Taul is proposing a budget that totals $59,615,729. The county’s expenses in the budget total $22,294,285, which comes in higher than the county’s revenue.

“We unfortunately only have revenue of $17.5 million of recurring sustainable taxes, fees, some interest thrown in there from some money that we have,” Taul said. “So you add all those up and it only amounts to $17.5 million.”

The proposed budget balances the deficit by using $440,000 of the county’s remaining American Rescue Plan Act funds and $4,367,634 of the $8 million pilot agreement with BlueOval SK.

“This is, in case you’re not familiar with that, it’s a one-time payout in lieu of BlueOval SK construction workers’ occupational taxes, and so this was an agreement with them that instead of trying to obtain the construction workers’ occupational taxes this was a payout to take in place of that.”

Taul said cuts have been made to the original budget presented to the county’s Finance Committee, but the budget still needs to account for high inflation over the past three years that has driven up prices for equipment and materials, as well as increases to insurance and personnel costs. The budget does not account for the county’s occupational tax as the county can’t project the revenue it will produce.

Members of the fiscal court were split on their support of the budget. Magistrate Chris Yates said he was not in favor of approving a budget that operates on a deficit two years in a row.

“I voted in favor of the budget last year, but a wise man once said, ‘if you find yourself in a hole, you need to quit digging,’” Yates said. “If we don’t put the shovel down, we’re going to find ourselves in a hole that even if we wanted to, we won’t be able to tax our way out of.”

Magistrate Kenny Saltsman said he took issue with the use of the BlueOval SK funds.

“$8 million that we’re getting from the BOSK was supposed to last us around 15 years, and this first year we’re using over half of it just to balance this budget,” Saltsman said. “We can’t continue down this road. I cannot support this budget on the words of hopeful, or even gambling as I’ve heard others state, when counting on the occupational tax to be our saving grace.”

Magistrates E.G. Thompson and Fred Clem both said the county is hampered by state regulations that take revenue streams away from county governments while permitting their use by cities. Clem said he supports the budget as the county is doing the best with what it can.

“There’s not a person on this court that’s not concerned about this budget. Not one of us,” Clem said. “We all have the same concerns, but I’m confident that we can manage our way through our fiscal issues and get back to parity.”

The first reading of the budget was approved by a 5-4 vote. The budget will go up for approval on its second reading at the fiscal court’s next meeting, which will be held April 23.

Deneen says ‘common sense’ focus of 2024 legislative efforts

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The Kentucky General Assembly is currently in its veto recess, meaning the state House of Representatives and state Senate are waiting on Governor Andy Beshear to review and take action on the more than 160 bills that passed the 2024 legislative session.

Kentucky 10th District Senator Matt Deneen sponsored four bills that passed through the general assembly. One of those, Senate Bill 18, has been signed into law. Deneen says the bill is an example of his goal for common sense legislation that benefits the commonwealth in and out of District 10.

“I’ve been able to find some things that just need to be updated and changed to avoid wasteful spending and to make sure that our school districts have the best equipment that they can for the safety of our children in the transportation realm, but at the same time we do that in a way that provides fair competition for tire manufacturers and policy alignments through the Kentucky Department of Education,” Deneen said.

Deneen says common sense was also the motivation behind Senate Bill 17, which was requested by county coroner offices in Kentucky to amend a policy requiring a five-day turnaround on the issuance of death certificates.

“With all of the different types of toxicology and ballistics tests, and all the autopsies and forensic tests that are required to truly find the cause of death, that five-day turnaround was not enough time to get those things done, to provide families with accurate information about their loved one’s passing,” Deneen said.

Another of Deneen’s bills is Senate Bill 265, which modifies Kentucky’s alternative teacher certification pathway.

“We want to make sure that those folks have bachelor’s and master’s degrees and are certified in those areas or working towards a certification in those areas, so Senate Bill 265 basically provides that framework and those guardrails to ensure that our students get the very best by those that have the experiences needed that may not have started in education,” Deneen said.

More information on the bills can be found through the Kentucky Legislative Research Commission.

Hodgenville Police Department invites area residents to sexual assault awareness event

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Hodgenville Police Chief James Richardson says he was disappointed with the low turnout for a presentation on sextortion the department hosted via Zoom, so after getting community feedback on how to improve the idea and reach more people the police department is hosting an in-person event on sexual assault and related issues on April 15.

“We’re going to give a presentation,” Richardson said. “It’s going to start at 6 p.m. at the Extension Office here in Larue County up on Old Elizabethtown Road, and what we will do is we’ll start out with basically what are the issues that we’re seeing here in our community and then we will talk about how HPD investigates those.”

Richardson said the event ties into April being Child Abuse Awareness Month and Sexual Assault Awareness Month. The event is an opportunity to hear from the HPD as well as the organizations that assist them.

“We are going to start out with just basically ‘this is what we’re seeing’ and then we’re going to introduce our community partners,” Richardson said. “We have some folks from Silverleaf, I’ve invited CommuniCare, Lincoln Trail BHH is coming, so we’ll have folks there to explain to the community this is what their role is in our investigations and what services they offer for the community.”

The ultimate goal of the event is to share information and connect residents with resources.

“If anybody wants to come, we encourage in-person, that way you can actually meet and see everybody,” Richardson said. “You’ll get to see some of the sexual assault investigators from the police department. You’ll get to ask questions. Any questions that we have from the community, they can email me questions. They can go on our Facebook page and message me questions that they want answered, and we’ll try to address those there in the presentation.”

The event will be recorded and made available for viewing for anybody unable to attend in person.

Early voting under way for May 21 primary election

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Absentee mail-in voting is now available ahead of the May 21 primary election.

Voters that are eligible may request a mail-in absentee ballot now through May 7. Those requests can be made at govote.ky.gov.

In Hardin County, in-person excused absentee voting will take place May 8, 9, 10, 13, 14, and 15 in the Hardin County Clerk’s office. Early voting will take place at the clerk’s office as well as at the Colvin Community Center on May 16, 17, and 18.

Hardin County Clerk Brian D. Smith said voters heading to the polls on May 21 will have more options this year.

“Last year we had 12 locations. This year we’ll have 15 locations,” Smith said. “The largest of those locations will also have additional check-in stations, so not only are we having more locations, but we also should be able to get people through the line faster. That was based on the feedback we got directly from the public.”

The deadline to register for the May 21 primary election is at 4 p.m. on April 22. Election information is available at govote.ky.gov or contact your county clerk’s office for assistance.