WQXE NEWS

Students and their parents are invited to learn about scholarship opportunities and other college resources at Get Your Money Right 2026, to be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, January 17 at North Hardin High School.

“The goal of the event is to put the high school students in the same room with these local scholarship opportunities and get them to fill out as many applications as they possibly can,” said event organizer Selena Hudson. “If they bring their Chromebooks that day, or in the future this month, they can fill out the application and get awarded that money, and not leave any money on the table.”

In addition to scholarship opportunities, the event will feature workshops, panel discussions, and guest speakers focusing on a range of financial literacy topics.

“We have Budgeting 101 through Abound Credit Union and AI for Teens with Lucas Solutions, and we also have our former garrison commander coming back in and he’s going to be our motivational speaker to kick off the day, to talk to the students about ‘don’t talk about it, be about it,’” Hudson said.

All students are welcome to attend this free event, but seniors are encouraged to register ahead of time in order to qualify for door prizes and scholarship giveaways.

“It’s going to be a great day for the college students,” Hudson said. “We’ve had businesses donate gift cards and gift all the things, and we will have about 20 local vendors that are offering scholarships and local organizations that are offering scholarships will be there.”

Find the link to register and more information on the Get Your Money Right Inc. Facebook group.

The Hardin County Fiscal Court met for their first meeting of the year Tuesday.

Hardin County Jailer Josh Lindblom provided an update on medical billing for inmates at the Hardin County Detention Center. Lindblom said as part of the sale of Hardin Memorial Hospital $150,000 annually is supposed to go towards medical bills for the jail. Bills were not being adjusted to the Medicaid rate for inmates in the hospital for more than 24 hours, and Lindblom said after discussions the hospital acknowledged the county is right.

“The good thing about it is going forward now every bill we have for the hospital worth $150,000 will be repriced, so what that means is over the next 15 years that we have it left there will be about $750,000 in savings at least,” Lindblom said.

Lindblom presented a check for $50,383.53 from an audit of 2025 billing, and said audits will be conducted for the other four years after the sale.

The court approved resolutions assigning the county’s solid waste franchise agreement to Unified Disposal Partners Holdings LLC. Judge/Executive Keith Taul said UDP plans to buy the Kentucky and Tennessee assets of Platform Waste, the current solid waste provider for the county. The court also approved a resolution assigning the county’s intergovernmental support agreement to UDP, which covers solid waste service to Fort Knox. The county says curbside pickups and scheduled routes will continue uninterrupted, and residents should continue to use their orange cans.

The court held a second vote on a resolution approving the hiring of a full-time GIS coordinator. County Attorney Jenny Oldham said under Kentucky law if the vote on a resolution for the hiring of personnel remains tied for 15 days, the judge/executive has authority to make the hiring decision. E.G. Thompson, who abstained from the original vote, said given the existing contract with the Lincoln Trail Area Development District he was not ready to move ahead with the resolution.

“We have looked at cost savings and I’ve not heard that it’s inadequate,” Thompson said. “I do believe it’ll be a cost savings and in my mind it’s worth giving a good close look at to see if we can operate this way, and then if we can’t we need to go back and look at it again.”

Taul said he believed the more fiscally responsible choice was to hire a staffer rather than contract out the work. He also expressed frustration with the magistrates intervening in the hiring process.

“We do not know of any time in the last 20 years that the fiscal court has ever denied hiring an employee in an approved budgeted position,” Taul said. “I’ll say this: this negatively affected the morale of employees whenever this happened last month.”

The resolution was voted down 5 to 4.

In other meeting news, Hardin County Planning and Development Director Adam King said in 2025, 94 plats and 189 lots were recorded, 480 total building permits were issued, and 91 new single-family dwellings were approved. Hardin County Public Works Director Stephanie Givens said 937 bags were collected from 866 visitors during the county’s free shredding days in 2025, and 302 tons of products were collected from the county’s recycling trailers.

The Hardin County Fiscal Court will next meet January 27. The next Hardin County town hall forum will be held in the fiscal courtroom on January 26.

The Elizabethtown City Council met for a work session Monday.

City Director of Wastewater Treatment Corey Bond provided an update on his department. Bond said the city treated 2.9 billion gallons of water in 2025, with an average volume of about 13 million gallons per day, which is 62 percent of the wastewater treatment facility’s maximum capacity. The city’s facility expansion plan has been submitted to the state for approval. The estimated cost of the full expansion is about $120 million, but Bond said the work will be completed in phases to evaluate demand.

“The first phase of the expansion will be a new admin building and new equipment that we need in order to meet new regulations that are put forth by the state, and then we can also phase in later on the actual expansion of capacity,” Bond said.

City Administrator Ed Poppe provided an update on several city projects. Poppe said several projects related to the outdoor music venue are progressing. Commerce Drive will be closed until spring for construction operations, and the Kentucky Division of Water approved a water line upgrade project being conducted in conjunction with Hardin County Water District No. 2. Poppe said the project did hit some delays related to sinkholes, with costs coming out of project contingency funds.

“I’m happy to report that remediation work has been done, the projects moving along, so Congleton-Hacker and our design team have worked very well with our special inspectors, and like I said have done a really good job of staying on top of that from a timing standpoint,” Poppe said.

Poppe said work on Fire Station No. 4 is nearing completion, and after also seeing some soil remediation work the expansion of the Elizabethtown Police Department is progressing.

Elizabethtown Airport Board Chair Carl Swope provided an update. Swope said the city’s acquisition of the Hayden School Road property adjacent the airport will go a long way towards supporting the airport’s strategic plan. Work on a corporate jet hangar has been completed, while Swope said the board is requesting $600,000 from the city for the next phase of their T-hangar project as the board waits for grant application opportunities.

“We got done sooner than we thought we would, so we are not as close to the next round of funding as we thought we would be, and even then I was probably going to have to be here anyway, but I’m here today asking if it is possible to do some bridge funding, some gap funding,” Swope said.

Elizabethtown Mayor Jeff Gregory said the city and council would discuss the requested funds.

The Elizabethtown City Council will next meet January 20.