Meeting of September 8, 2026

The Harden County Fiscal Court live stream will begin momentarily. Right. Good afternoon everyone. Uh again, if you'll just check your cell phones, make sure that they're on silent and we'll get started here. This is the September 8th, 2026 Harden County fiscal court regular voting meeting. Let's begin and call this meeting to order. Roll call, please. Squire Climpmp here. — Squire Hicks here. Squire Muse — here. Squire Pennington — here. — Squire Saltzman here. Squire Thompson — here. — Squire Whitehead — here. — Squire Yates here. Des tall here. Next, our invocation by Magistrate Hicks and the pledge of allegiance. Magistrate Pennington. I ask you all to pray with me. Heavenly Father, we just thank you for this day. Thank you for the time that we can come

in to this business session and and just uh we just pray that we will do uh what is the best for the people of Harden County and that we would pray that what just ask yourself what would Jesus do. Uh we just thank you for the for the country that we have and the freedom we have and uh just as the day goes by and we make all these decisions in court today, we just pray that we would uh search our hearts and our mind and do the best for whatever is the best is for Harden County. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. — Amen. — Amen. Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. — All right. Again, thanks everyone for uh being here today and participating in your local government. Um, it's great to see all of you and those that are watching on TV and um or streaming. I'm going to take a moment and review the

agenda. It's a little bit longer than usual. So, uh we do have the the uh minutes that we'll vote on next. After that, um we will have someformational items uh primarily around tax rates. And so, we've got several presentations uh to go through there. And then we will have a public hearing again regarding tax rates. After that we will have um some a time for citizens concerns or comments. Then we have uh an ordinance and a resolution to vote on today. And after that we have the consent agenda which I'll go through all the items in there. And then uh our typical comments at the end uh last minute uh addition was a a closed session that we'll go into uh right before adjournment and so there'll be no um business that will uh happen after that close session. All right. So, that's the agenda.

And so, we will um move on then to the next item of business, which is to approve the Harden County Fiscal Court August 25th, 2026 minutes. And I need a motion to approve. — So, moved. — Second. — Moved and seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none. And roll call, please. Squire Clim, — yes. — Squire Hicks, — yes. — Squire Muse, — yes. — Square Pennington, — yes. Brier Saltzman. — Yes. Brier Thompson, — yes. — Wayhead, — yes. — Yates, yes. Tall, — yes. Motion passes. — All right. Next, uh we'll move on into ourformational items and we'll start out with uh a rural secondary program. Uh Brad Bottoms and the chief district engineer, Department of Highways. And uh so we'll and actually I guess we have um see that I thought I had your name in here somewhere. — Bo Warren. — Bo. Yes. Bo. Okay. Thank you. Go right ahead. — All right. Uh judge, members of the fiscal court, uh thank you for letting me come and present our our RS program

for KYTC for the next year. Our uh rule secondary program is funded by 22.2% 2% of the motor fuels tax receipts. These funds are allocated to all 120 counties based on a five-point formula. And that formula is based on 1/5if equally among all counties, 1/5 based on the rural population, 1/5 based on the road miles, and two-fifths based on the land area. And once that money is allocated to the county, it cannot be transferred to any other county. So, I've passed out uh our rules secondary program to each one of you. There's a the rule secondary recommendations for this year. Our first priority is routine maintenance and traffic and that's estimated at a cost of $777,200 for this next fiscal year. Um our our next priority is the flex funds that it's allocated to the county and that total is $314282. Our fourth item is a an asphalt resurfacing

um uh project that's on Kentucky 920 from the Grayson and Harden County line at mile.0 to Kentucky 84 at mile 3.321 for a total of distance of 3.21. 21 miles at an estimated cost of $417,834. And our last item is an asphalt base repair from mile point 12.79 to 15.275 on Kentucky 920 for a total distance of 2.485 miles and an estimated cost of $35,327. So our entire program for this year is estimated at 1,544,643 for Harden County. Any questions? All right. Thank Thank you for the presentation. — Thank you. — Thank you. — Thank you. — All right. Next up, uh have some presentations, uh testimony of property tax rates for KRS 65A 100, special purpose government entities. And we'll start out the first

one with the Harden County Cooperative Extension Service, and Elijah Coffee will present that. — Good afternoon, board. Thank you for having me tonight. Uh we uh we voted the district board voted and opted to have no change to um the tax rates outside of the compensation. Um and it is currently set for real property 0180, personal property 0283 and motor vehicle 0146. — Anybody have any questions? — All right. Thank you. — Thank you very much. — Thank you. — Thank you. — Next up, Harden County Soil Conservation District, Vincent Thompson. — Hello, ladies and gentlemen. — Hello, Mr. — Last time I was here, I was bringing you all a check. So, this time I got to counterbalance that by saying that I'm going to ask for limited money. Um, but yeah, we are we're going to be applying for the compensating rate again this year. Um, but I always uh like to uh take a chance and uh speak on some of the reasons why we ask for that money and some of the reasons that we uh get

that money and put forth into the community. If you'all would allow me that pleasure. — Yes, please. — All right. So, uh our Miller taxes are used for art writing contest. Y'all see uh the benefits of that when you come to our banquet. You see the uh top three award winners and you see uh each of those divisions sending somebody on to state and then we have a county level. Um, we also do a lot of high school and college scholarships. Uh, every year we attempt to do at least 10. Um, sometimes those will fluctuate between five for high school, five for college. Sometimes it's six, sometimes it's four. You know, we balance that out. Um, you know, we have a recycling project that we take care of every year that many of y'all are participants in. The tree seedling giveaway every year at the beginning of April. We have a massive variety of trees that uh we put forth in the public's hands. um you know they're saplings so they're a little bit smaller maybe not all of them are going to survive but everyone we can get in the ground has that much chance to get it surviving so that's a big project for us we sponsor the 4 FFA youth project project completion show every year at the fair uh that grand champion gets uh awarded some money and they are in the 4 level for going on to the the state level at that contest we sponsor two campers for conservation camps if any know anybody that is looking to get a