Meeting of December 18, 2025

So, let's go ahead and begin. This is Dece December 18th, 2025 Harden County fiscal court regular voting meeting. So, let's begin and call this meeting to order. And roll call, please. — Squire Clim — here. — Squire Hicks — here. — Squire Muse — here. — Squire Pennington — here. — Squire Saltzman — here. — Squire Thompson — here. — Squire Whitehead — here. — Squire [clears throat] Yates — here. Tall here. Uh, next we'll have our invocation by Magister Clam. Pledge of allegiance. Magistrate Thompson. — Please pray with me. our most gracious and loving God. Father, we we thank you for this day. And Father, we come praising your holy name. And Father, thank you for all the blessings that you have given to us this year. Father, we we remember this time of year. It's a very special time. It's the time that our savior was born. And Father, we just thank you for the salvation given to each of us. If we just sit in and ask forgiveness and such as Christ,

Father, we also remember all those that across the country, across the world who won't be home this Christmas with their families. We ask that you be near them. Father, we ask you to be near the family members of those that recently lost their lives [clears throat] for their country and their families. We thank you for that. Father, go with us through this meeting. Father, just lead guide our discussions. All things we ask in your son Jesus name. Amen. Amen. — Please join me in the pledge of allegiance to our flag. — I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America. and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. — First of all, just uh have a little bit of u mercy on me today. I've got a cold. Tried to keep my distance. Came in late so we didn't have to shake hands with anybody. And uh so it's uh uh I think I'm good enough to get through the

meeting and then [snorts] head home. So um anyway, that's why I have a a Kleenex [snorts] up here. I have a throat loss. I've taken cold medication. So uh may not be 100% today, but we'll we'll move on through this meeting. Um so again, thanks for joining today. see quite a few faces that uh are good to see at these meetings and um appreciate you being here be a part of of fiscal court and a part of this governing body in in Harden County. Appreciate that. And um acknowledge again that we have our mayor from uh West Point here today. Thank you for being here. Uh we have our sheriff here today. Uh so thanks have a previous magistrate here today. So uh thank you for being here and uh yeah so very good. Um just a quick review of the agenda. We it's uh pretty basic agenda but we do have several things to cover. Uh we have approval of the minutes. Um, we have uh a presentation

and uh in a time for citizens concerns or comments. We have um two budgets to approve today and then another resolution and then after that we have the consent agenda and I'll cover those in more detail what's in the consent agenda and then time for comments as usual kind of wrap things up for the most part because we have uh two close sessions today that we'll be discussing three items in at the very end. There will be no uh decisions made after those. So we'll just uh adjourn after those close sessions. Okay. So that's what we have in store. Um I just another comment. I just wanted to u recognize a particular person. It's probably her uh last time here at least in the capacity that she currently is in. And uh so uh Gina Clear who uh I was worried she wasn't here at the beginning but I I would still said the same thing while you're sitting here. But uh uh from News Enterprise, she's wrapping up and uh moving on to a new position. And so this is probably her last fiscal court to cover. And I just wanted to say that I appreciate all

your hard work over the years uh to try to communicate things that are going on into the county. and um I think you've done a great job and um you know and I just kind of I just want to wish you the best in your next your next job and uh just wanted you to know that you're appreciated very much. All right. Um given that we'll move on to our next item, which is [snorts] to approve the Harden County Fiscal Court minutes from December 9th, 2025. Is there a motion to approve? — So move. — Second. It's moved and seconded. Any discussion? Roll call, please. — Square Clim, — yes. — Square Hicks, — yes. — Square Muse, — yes. — Square Pennington, — yes. — Square Saltzman, — yes. — Square Thompson, — yes. — Square Whitehead, — yes. — Square Yates, — yes. — Judge Tall, — yes. Motion passes. — All right. Next, we have some a presentation today, and it's from our clerk, Brian Smith. Thank you. Um just kind of go uh a little bit of a year in review. Um this last year I got to participate along with the deputy

judge executive in the Harden County Chamber Leadership Program. It was a great educational opportunity and uh really enjoyed that. U we held mock elections at West Harden Middle, Helwood Heights and Morningside Elementary Schools. And I got to tell you, our teachers are doing a a fantastic job instilling civics in in our in our students. Um, Harden County was the second highest sales of the A tag in the Commonwealth. Watch out, Warren County. We're coming for you. Uh, we uh made nearly 50 years of election recordings available online. Uh, our election staff completed national training qualifications. I'm really really um appreciative of the hard work they put into those certifications. Uh we held voter registration drives at ECTC, Etown High School, and John Harden. John Harden set a record with almost 39. I think 39 was their number of students we registered at. It's our largest single event. It was fantastic. Um I had some meetings with state legislators, the Secretary of State and the State Board of Elections discussing uh elections legislation uh which is in the works for the upcoming session. Um, also had the opportunity to participate in a national elections advocacy day on Capitol Hill, meeting with Congressman Guthrie and the

staff to Representative Comr, Senators McConnell and Paul. Uh, that trip was done at zero cost to the taxpayer, but I felt like it was worth spending my time. Um, there's more and more national focus on our local elections. I wanted to be make sure our our delegation is well aware of what we're doing here in Harden County. And uh my favorite thing that we've done all the year is promoting Harden County student Allison Marinich's winning I voted sticker. The court recognized her. We will be using her stickers at the elections next year and it's going to be a hot commodity. The only way to get one is to show up and vote. Um also uh got to visit out with our great heroes at the Radcliffe Veterans Center. That's that one picture on the left. and we presented on behalf of the Kentucky County Clerks Association $11,000 for their enrichment program out there. And um these guys are continuing to serve. They are so appreciative. There's so many folks that that they feel give to them that they are looking ways to give continue to give back and to continue to serve. Um so we're going to make another visit out there in the near future to to help with that. Uh the other pictures represents that was our first wheelchair we collected. The

community uh really came in in spades and they really donated a ton of wheelchairs. We'll be utilizing that for our program at the polls next year to help our mobility impaired folks who want to vote uh on election day. Um and we're looking forward to that. May is sort of going to be our trial run with it with November hopefully a full bang operation to help those folks. And then the next slide. Um this is our typical fees and commissions report. Um it always looks a little bit busy. If you look on the subtotal in the lower right, the $244,000 U mark, that's as of November. So um well, we'll be well over um an additional quarter of a million dollars in collections for our office um in this year compared to last year. On the next slide, you all will be voting on on our clerk's budget this year. And I just kind of want to share with the public who have not had the opportunity to see this um what what that looks like. Um rolling back to 2023, the prior clerk's budget that was passed by fiscal court was $2.586 million. Um in 24 and 25, we cut o over $70,000 each year from that