Fiscal Court - Regular Meeting

Commissioner Barrett, would you lead us in prayer, please?

Heavenly Fathers, we come before you today to do the county's business. I pray that you'd watch over us, lead us, guide us, that we do what we need to do to honor you, Lord. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Amen.

Call this Marshall County Fiscal Court special called meeting July 16th, 2026 to order. Our first guest, Lena Blevins, Kentucky Lake CBB. Got some exciting stuff to talk about.

I hope so, yes. That's the plan. All right, good morning.

Good morning. Good morning.

I'm going to try to go through this. I will get into the weeds a little bit on some short-term rental stuff, but I'll try to keep it pretty high level and as exciting as I can. So we just kicked off our 26-27 fiscal year. Key highlights from kind of this past year, last year, this year, is the recent addition of our new marketing manager, Ellie Shimwell, who I have with me today. I brought her so everybody can meet her. And we have really been, since the addition of Ellie, focusing on enhancing our social media marketing strategy, increased social media presence. We've launched a podcast recently. We are also really trying to stay AI optimized and really focus on just making sure that all of our marketing, our website, everything is kind of meeting. the needs of AI as it really starts to influence travel decisions amongst people. Our new integrated online events calendar with Yodel, which I have a screenshot and can explain, our short-term rental compliance contract that we just signed with AirDNA, and then Major League Fishing had a big announcement, which we were happy to be part of and excited to be included with, with the heavy hitters announcement. Just a high level nationally travel demand remains strong, but we are no longer seeing the rapid post pandemic revenge travel. Americans are still prioritizing travel. However, they're cutting costs and being as cost effective as possible, which could be a good thing for us. Drive destinations are winning. showing the value traveler is returning after 24 and 25 was the years of luxury travel. It was really the only segment of travel that was showing any kind of significant growth. So affordability is a big buzzword right now. Experiences are still influencing travel decisions. So part of the reason why we're ramping social media is to really kind of highlight how you can experience our destination. And then travelers, like I said, are becoming very influenced by AI. It's changing the way people are searching. They're not going to Google anymore and searching a destination. They're actually going into chat GPT. They're asking questions. Where should I go? What should I do? And AI is literally planning their vacations for them. So it's a very rapid sort of growth as far as marketing. And it's always evolving and changing. So we are doing our best to stay on top of it. All right, so this is our newest team. So Ellie, who's here with me, but we also have a summer intern, Scout Sandlin. So we had just finished. We were filming a bit for the Kentucky Living Best in Kentucky Awards. We were the sponsor for that. But yeah, so Ellie, we're excited to have her. She's going to handle social media. She's our content queen. Scout will be with us the rest of the summer, kind of helping her with content shoots. But these two join Kim and myself to kind of round out your CVB team. So our current marketing campaigns right now, we are focusing on late summer getaways. Your weekend deserves a better view. You know, we really are trying to focus on drive market, getting people here for a couple of days, you know, an extended weekend. We still do a very fishing-focused marketing campaign as well, just because it is such an important segment of who we are and our destination. But then we'll continue to kind of evolve into seasonal travel as temperatures cool, school gets back, all of that. But some PR things that we did, we're actually, it airs today, Great Day Live, which is the ABC affiliate, WHS 11 out of Louisville. They have a weekend, a Great Day Live weekend getaway segment. So we had them down last month to film a show. So we have a 60-minute show coming out with them today. And then Best of Awards, like I said, Kentucky. And then, of course, our social highlight series, which I hope people are seeing, but we're spotlighting communities, we're spotlighting hidden gems, we're spotlighting our lodging establishments. So it's been exciting to kind of see how social media and what people feel about the area. The comments have been really great and helpful, so we're excited about that. Our online event calendar, this is something, okay, we're okay. Yodel, this is a company that we're working with to help streamline online events and how to help market events for the entire county. It is really easy for anybody. If you're putting Facebook events or if you're doing events on your website, Yodel can kind of help scrape that data and pull it into our online event calendar. Sometimes we do have to monitor it. We noticed at one point it was pulling in reservations for the pavilions at Mike Miller, and I was like, I don't think we need that detail and granular information. So we do have to kind of monitor. It does pull in from other cities sometimes. But if for some reason you're not seeing an event on there that you think needs to be on there, you can email me or Ellie. It's really easy for us to put it on there. And then we can actually have featured events. So it should be a good resource for the entire county.

I want to thank you all for doing that. I've said forever we need that. I talked to Brian and Bree the other day. We're actually starting to go there before we schedule events in the park. There's nothing worse than having four things to do and you can only go to one or nothing to do. So we're trying to look at that calendar and see if there's already something going on. We don't wanna conflict with other events if at all possible. So that's huge for the county and thank you all.

Yeah, thank you, you're welcome. It's our pleasure and so we'll continue to kind of fine tune and monitor this platform for everybody. Our economic impact numbers came out for 2025. We generated over $88 million for the county. We helped contribute 736 jobs to Marshall County, $20.3 million in labor income, and $6.3 million in state and local taxes. This is a slight decline, I will say, from 2024. If you break it out, they break it out into segments, lodging, transportation, food and beverage, entertainment, and retail. We saw increases in every area except for lodging and transportation. Transportation is made up of a variety of things, rideshare services, buses, limousines, rental car services, which we don't really have. A whole lot of that. And then lodging, I think I've got a couple of slides that kind of indicate, I think, where bookings and how we just had such a rainy season in 2025, which severely impacted people coming, especially during that May-June timeframe. April, May, June. And then our short-term rental market is just really beginning to have a kind of significant impact on us as far as our entire lodging ecosystem. So it's positive in the sense that our short-term rentals, people discovered short-term rentals during COVID. And so, and I actually here, I'll just go to, so this slide is actually, this is the AirDNA company that we contracted with. So it goes from that, which that slide is really little, and I will, I can email these to you guys. But that goes from 2016 to 2025. So you can see, just less than 10 years, you know, it's now making up, a tremendous amount of supply for our lodging. So in 2016, we had about 2,000, a little over 2,000 available listings at any given time throughout the year. In 2025, it was 45,000, over 45,000. And when I actually looked and sort of, they were able to provide us with some revenue numbers. You know, the short-term rental market, it generated over $4.4 million in fiscal year 2025, 2026. However, when I kind of broke down those numbers into what the revenue share was, what 3% of that is versus what we actually received, we're only capturing right now about 70% to 75% of the total short-term rental market. And it made up 22% of our total revenue receipts. So if we were receiving all of our short-term rental transient tax, we're probably pretty close to about half and half now. of half of our transient tax coming from resorts, hotels, motels, campgrounds, state parks, and then the other half would be short-term rentals. So, and we are collecting from VRBO, Priceline, we are collecting from Evolve Vacation Rentals, and we collect from a variety of individual property owners who do book on Airbnb and know that they're supposed to collect. The issue is Airbnb is not compliant with Kentucky state law. It's been an issue for years now and that's where the missing money is. It's from Airbnb properties and Airbnb not doing what they're supposed to be doing in the state of Kentucky. We had a lawsuit filed with Airbnb through KLC and KTIA. We were optimistic that that lawsuit would end in our favor, but eventually, ultimately, it was dismissed, kind of on a technicality of sorts. So the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled that KLC and KTIA did not have legal standing to basically sort of have this lawsuit on behalf of its members. So they didn't actually provide a ruling on the question of whether or not Airbnb was operating legally or should be operating differently than they are, they just, the case was dismissed. That was not great news. That was not what we wanted to hear. So KLC, KTA are looking at other ways. They, of course, want to appeal, but they are going to be looking at individual counties and communities to see if they can create specific case studies And I honestly think we would be a good example. And so that was part of the reason why we contracted with AirDNA, because they have 10 years worth of data that we can start sorting through, sifting through, and can kind of start creating and showing how Airbnb, choosing not to be compliant with Kentucky state law, is having a negative impact on us. So I don't know what the future holds. We in our office will continue to try to track down individual property owners. When we do find out about them, we try to communicate that it is best if they are only listing through VRBO or Evolve because we know that those entities collect and remit. and that if they are doing Airbnb, it is up to them to collect and remit that tax to the treasurer's office.

But per our own ordinance, it's that short-term rental owner's... responsibility regardless.

Ultimately.

Yeah.

To make sure that it's getting done.

So is Airbnb collecting it and just keeping it? They're not collecting it at all.

I don't think the money's being... Through an Airbnb listing, unless that property owner has specifically gone into their dashboard, created an additional fee, knows to take it out of their host payout and remit it, I don't think Airbnb is collecting it at all. Okay. They have a 3% fee that they keep, but that's their commission. And so I think that's where a lot of the confusion happens is people and property owners see 3%, and they think, oh, okay, but that's what they keep. There should be an additional 3% that is then sent to the local in the host payout.

You said the Supreme Court has already ruled on that?

Yes.

It was pretty fast to get to them, right? How long is that lawsuit?

It's been going on for a couple of years.

They filed it as soon as that law passed. Did it go through the Court of Appeals?

It's been going on since probably 2022.

Did it go through the Court of Appeals first?

I'm not sure. I'll have to look into that, but I can certainly.

They basically said that KLC, on behalf of their members and whatever. KTIA, which is our state tourism industry. Didn't have standing. I mean, they're representing those communities that aren't receiving this money. Yeah, I mean, I can understand their ruling.

I get it. Then keep it to yourself. All right. Can we strike that from the record?

Oh my gosh, we can.

I'm not totally surprised that they ruled that way, but that doesn't mean that it still can't be challenged. Yeah.

Yeah. So, you know, we... It is up to, I mean, if this is obviously maybe a conversation that we can continue, but we, I guess what I'm saying is our office now at least has some data to help build a case. And so we are working, I literally just got onboarded onto the dashboard and kind of went through my training on how to use it this past week. Um, so we're still kind of figuring it out. Um, but we'll continue to kind of sift through that info.

Um, and I'm happy to provide any insights and information that, that you guys, or you're, you're thinking they're going to come to individual CVBs and say, you, we need you as the plaintiff kind of be like, yes.

And so we just want to make sure that, that if it is asked of us that we're prepared. But I will keep you all. This is, you know, none of those conversations have officially been had. So this is all just us trying to be proactive. But I do think that that is part of the reason why maybe we saw a little bit of a struggle in our short-term rental or in our economic impact in 2025 between the rainy weather, the economic. Like I said, luxury travel in 24-25 were the only segment that was really seeing growth. So economy is starting to come back, which is good. So this shows the bright yellow line at the very top shows 2026, that dark blue line. in 2020 is 2025 so as you can see supply has really been pretty much the same but there was a dip in April May last year in 2025 that bottom line is 2017 so I showed about every three years from 2017 to now, and just how much it has just exploded over the last, like I said, 10 years. But this is actually booking demand, so these were the actual booking listings that happened, and you can see that significant dip in May and April, which April was when we had 15 inches of rain, and May is when we had the rainiest Memorial Day weekend we've had in a long time. But as you can see, 2026 still saw a dip, but it was not as bad. So I think we're kind of back on track, or at least that is my hope. So, yep. Any others? This was just a slide to kind of showcase that there has been growth in the short-term, significant growth in the last two years. And in that very bottom chart there, that last segment says luxury. So the fact that Marshall County can compete in luxury travel because of our short-term rentals is... I mean, that's pretty impressive. And then this last side is booking time, lead time. So over the last 12 months, it breaks it down, and it breaks it down by months so that we can now see when people book. On average, people are still booking about two months ahead. So in marketing, that tells us that we need to get ads in front of people about two months. before they may or may not be planning a trip. But there is a growing, a significant amount of travelers that are booking the week of. That dark blue is zero to six days. So people make their booking within a week of coming. And that is hard to get in front of people. But that is where we're hoping social media helps in that. Because it is a bit more continuous and ongoing. All right. Sorry, that was a little in the weeds, but here's the fun stuff. So our sponsorship line item, we had some big events. The biggest event is that Kentucky Barkley Lake is going to be the heavy hitters location for the Bass Pro Tour, their 2027 schedule. We were stage five in 2024. It was a great event. and really kind of showcase the fishery wonderfully. So I was able to, I have to give a shout out and thanks to this, Heavy Hitters was one of the more expensive tournaments to sponsor. So I reached out to our other lake partners since they are allowed to fish both Kentucky and Barkley Lake. So I had other tourism partners, Calloway County, Destination Calloway, Trig Katie's Tourist Commission, Catawah Tourism Commission and the Lyon County or Lake Barkley Tourist Commission We all came together, kind of broke up a financial contribution that worked for everybody. And so we are still the most significant partner because it is going to go out of Kentucky Dam and we are their headquarters. But because of their partnership, we were able to bring this event in. So it is the reason we kind of liked the heavy hitters tournament was because of the amount of broadcast time that you get with heavy hitters. Um, so of, I mean, it's just hours and it's double. So like stage five, we only got two and a half, three hours, maybe of broadcast time with heavy hitters. We get six to 12 hours, um, because they showcase it so much. So, um, it's the smallest pool of anglers. It's only 30 anglers. Um, it's a catch and release format. It's all. But it'll be millions of impressions. The longest hours of demand are streaming and on demand. And so we're really excited about that event.

But we have some other tournaments that we are sponsoring.

BFL Regionals happening this October. And then USA Bassin is coming back next spring, which is our biggest tournament. It's usually about 900 anglers over a course of 10 to 14 days for their championship series. But, yeah. And then also in September, we are hosting KCVB, which will be a number of tourism directors from all across the state coming and seeing our area and having some of our quarterly meetings and trainings. So that's exciting. We do have a little bit of money left in our sponsorship line item for this fiscal year. So we just approved at our last board meeting a funding request form for local and organizations and events. So if there is an event that is going on locally that thinks it does have the ability to generate overnight activity, because that is how our budget is, that's what our budget is, is transient tax from overnight stays, then they can fill out this application, the board will review it, and we will give anywhere between $500 to $1,000 for local events. So it's a little bit different than the ones that we seek out and go get, because we know that they generate overnight activities. So these are things that are going on that we aren't planning, but if they do feel like there's some overnight possibility, they can... We can look at that. It's no guarantee, but it at least gives us a way to kind of help funnel and sort through some of these. I am the chairperson for the Kentucky Sports Alliance this fiscal year, so I will be representing the state for sports tourism and trying to attract additional sports tourism events for Marshall County and the entire Commonwealth. That's going to be exciting. Legislative, obviously, as we talk, short-term rental regulations and protecting our funding are going to be key legislative points for us here locally. But then also state tourism initiatives and then tourism development ventures through public-private partnerships, I think, is going to start to become a bigger conversation moving forward, both at the local and state level. Our goal remains simple. Our job is to increase overnight visitation to our lodging establishments, strengthen Marshall County's tourism economy through the attraction and recruitment of visitors, businesses, meetings, conventions, events, and development, while acting as the county's aggressive sales and marketing organization. We are here to generate economic activity. I think we've done a pretty good job doing that, but we're always open to suggestions, ideas, and we'll keep doing our job to the best of our ability. Oh, last thing, our budget, which is probably the whole reason why I was supposed to be here. I do have our budget. Income for this fiscal year, we have at $588,400. It is an increase because we were A, hopeful that Airbnb would have to start paying, which would have been nice. B, in case we have any hotel development. C, as we continue to bring properties online, and capture more and more transient tax. Ken Lake Campground has been closed for two years, so hopefully that's gonna open and we'll start generating more revenue. So we did increase our transient tax just to create a little bit of flexibility there. And then our expenditures. So under the administrative, we did add a reserve line. We don't operate with any kind of reserve currently. But after going through an invasive carp crisis and a pandemic, it's probably good that we have a little bit set aside. So as we sort of ours were able to kind of build that up, we will. But our total advertising, 214,000, so that includes everything from marketing and advertising to sponsorships, advertising support, travel shows, printing publications, and then building expenses, which we're really close to getting our building paid off, which is exciting. Payroll did go up a little bit, of course, with us adding Ellie, but she is worth every penny, I assure you. And so there you have it, balanced budget, 2026.

Elaine, I just want to mention on the, you mentioned the Asian carp. I was at a meeting the other day with Fish and Wildlife, and our commercial fishermen are really doing a great job. They harvested 20 million pounds in 2025, so...

We are lucky and blessed. I actually was approached by Stewart County, Tennessee. They're like, what are you guys doing down there? I guess they're seeing some issues and some PR stuff with it. And they're like, how did you handle? And so I was able to kind of really type out an email that really sort of here's how we walk through the process and it was it was ugly at first and we had to let the issue get really really loud so that it could get the support and the funding that it needed but we were so lucky that we had you know state and federal and even local officials that really believed in the subsidy and have kept it going and have kept a really healthy commercial fishing industry here over the last 10 years and that's I mean that's made all the difference so yeah kudos to them they're doing a great

I'm on the Tennessee Tom Bigby Waterway Board, and one of the things we're lobbying for is the bioacoustical fish fencing like is at Lake Barkley on the other locks and dams, which that'll help.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

So as it relates to your budget, I know we increased it, but do we increase it that much? Okay.

Which that is, so our line items as far as transient tax match. So, but we have, there is a matching funds program where we can receive some reimbursement from the state. So that is contributing to our revenue, our rental income from renting out to KLED is in our, so it's multiple things, but yes.

So you don't, so it wouldn't be necessary to try to match that off. The money is still, that's coming to you directly. is what you're saying. That's coming to you directly.

It doesn't come through us. We put $500,000 as our transient tax receipts.

That's the only thing we manage anyway.

Thank you, and we appreciate aligning that so that we'll be able to kind of really capitalize and maximize as best as we can.

The other thing I know we've talked about in the past, but I don't know if we ever resolved it, was the online payment portal.

It's still in the works. Hotwire, I went through several calls and demos. They could not get me an ACH option, which in my opinion is really what we need. Now, I will say short-term rental property owners, there's some resort properties who have repeatedly asked for an online payment option. I know it is something that our property owners would utilize, but we want to make it cost-effective and budget-friendly for everyone. So I reached out to CFSB. They believed that they had a third-party vendor who could help us build the system. So I am... We've been... I've talked to him twice, and he keeps saying he's going to set up a demo for me. It has yet to happen, but I am working. That is ongoing. So as soon as I feel like we have a system that could work and that is not going to cost anybody anything, A whole lot of money. Of course, the ACH, usually the fee for an ACH is less than 3%. It's usually about 1.5% from the research I did. And we would pass that through to the property owner. So if we can get that set up, I will come back and I will present what that will look like, what that will cost. The CVB, our board would be willing to pay for the software and to get the system set up. But we would work with Erica and the treasurer's office to put it, you know, in on their site or wherever it needs to go to go to, you know, to their account so it can continue to be monitored at the treasurer's office. Yeah.

Last thing is I just hope that your association along with KLC, maybe Keiko, and Kentucky Realtors could get together maybe between now and the beginning of the year and work this out to where we can get a housing bill without this short-term rental being an issue.

Being a thorn. whatever you can do to make your or help with that I'd be willing to help I am shooting first I would love to have more state representation on our state board so I will continue to kind of do what I can in that area so any other questions for me

Yes. Do you have any idea how many years, how far back that goes?

I mean, they've been doing it for a number of years. I know at one point they switched companies. Tourism Economics is who, I believe, is who does it, and they've done it probably, I mean, I've always had an economic impact report annually, but whenever they switched companies, the formulas were different, so you couldn't really compare the two anymore. Yeah.

But I'm not sure. I mean, you know, since then the government has reorganized. So I'm not sure how far back they have the numbers.

I mean, I could personally go back and pull.

I'm not good because I don't know if I have the right amount of information. Okay. If you just have a frame of reference for how long. I don't want to burden them, but I would like to see it for all, not just Marshall, but all the surrounding counties.

All the surrounding counties, yeah. I mean, I'd say you're safe to say 10 years at least. I mean, I know we've been doing it for at least 10 years.

I'd love to get it all the way back to about 1985.

That's before my time. That is a big ask.

But there's a reason, there are very good reasons for why we need to look at it. But I think that for a long time, we had really nothing in Livingston County. But when Livingston blossomed, that had to have affected everything else too. I'm talking great and great, which is because when I went into business, Patty's been around for five or six or seven years.

I mean, we're rules, so therefore we have to sort of operate regionally as well. So, you know, if we're kind of in that position or if, you know, one community is doing well, it kind of helps lift us all.

All of your vendors are doing much better.

I wouldn't say that. It's not that we're not doing better. You know, it's just... Okay.

I'm just saying that they're developed where, you know, years ago they weren't.

Okay. Thank you, Elena. Appreciate you. Appreciate it. Thanks.

And welcome.

Yes.

Yeah.

Call for a short recess. Second. Second. All those in favor?

Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Okay. We'll call the meeting back to order. Mr. Pagel, you got some personnel changes, I believe.

Sure do. Sure do. For June, Kim Henson, term 6-5-26. Haley Sparks, term 6-8-26. Emily Bryson, term 6-5-26. Nicholas Hopkins, deputy sheriff, effective 6-1-26 at $28 an hour. Seth Coble, deputy jailer, effective 6-8-26 at $17.50 an hour. Jesse Hicks, deputy sheriff, wage increase to $30 an hour. Trevin Green, deputy sheriff, wage increase to $27 an hour. Connor Baumgardner, full-time animal control, effective 6-10-26 at $15 an hour. Caden Morris, seasonal road department, effective 6-8-26 at $15 an hour. Mackenzie McDonald, dispatcher, full-time, effective 6-10-26 at $24 an hour. Nathan Knight, seasonal road department, effective 6-22-26 at $15 an hour. Ronald Welch, term 5-15-26. Erin Lane. Sheriff Captain, wage increase to $31 an hour. Spring Rife, term 6-12-26. Tara Martin, wage increase to $26 an hour. Effective 6-16-26. A lot of sixes.

Thank you. Next item, our jail commissary report. Just acknowledging everyone received that. Everybody get that in your drive?

Okay. Okay.

Under old business, I need a motion to approve the minutes for the July 2nd special called meeting, please. Don't move. Second. Motion second. Any discussion on that? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Ordinance 2020-605, budget amendment, second reading, unless Erica corrects me this morning, we've still not received that back from DOG, so we'll have to table that until our next meeting. Hopefully we'll have it by then. Ordinance 2606, Amendment to the Admin Code. I want to discuss a couple things on that before Mr. Pagel reads that again. We have several employees over the proposed 200-hour cap for salaried employees. That would not be removing those hours they have over that. That's not taking them away from them in any way, form, or fashion. They would have to comply with the new language in the admin code. I think it refers to taking a couple days a month at a minimum to get that reduced down to that cap. So I wanted to make that clear. Mr. Pagel?

Okay. And there's one thing. I think you mentioned the word salaried. You might have meant to use the word exempt because we do have a few salaried non-exempts. That makes any sense.

Thank you for clarifying that.

That's OK. All right. So we got an ordinance related to the admin code, where we adopted the admin code. And County of Marshall adopted the admin code June 21, 2016. It was determined that several provisions should be amended or deleted to the code. Now, therefore, be it ordained by a fiscal court of Marshall County that the following amendments are made to the admin code of Marshall County. Section 5-1 in the definitions, changing some wording for exempt employee. Those who are not granted the protections of the Fair Labor Standards Act and are not entitled to overtime pay or pay for compensatory time adding for exempt employees shall adding be earned on an hour-for-hour basis only shall be capped at a maximum of 200 hours per exempt employee. And adding shall have no monetary value upon employment separation. I only switched the word will and shall there, that other part. The no monetary value was already there for years. Those positions deemed as exempt are deputy judge executive, E91 director, parks director, treasurer, assistant treasurer, road superintendent, road supervisor one, striking road supervisor two, GIS director, emergency management director, striking facilities management supervisor, chief deputy jailer and nurse, adding, this whole phrase, absent an emergency or an urgent need to report for work duties, current employees who are over the 200-hour cap at the time of this amendment shall take immediate steps to reduce his or her compensatory time below the cap by taking a minimum, minimum, of two days per month until his or her balance falls below the cap. That's where the change was added, ended. All right, so section 5.32, overtime compensation time. So adding since that other reading, it's a minor change, but this lines the request for taking compensatory time with taking vacation time. So this all has been added, section F. Compensatory time may be used in 15-minute increments subject to the approval of the department head. To avoid conflicts in the county's operating schedules and needs, notification must be given in advance of compensatory time usage. Consideration will be given to all requests. However, the county may deny the request if conflicts occur. Generally, a request should be made at least two weeks in advance. All right, for the KTRS, or the Kentucky Retirement System, CERS, county employments. It's adding language that all employees shall give written notice to the county judge and or his or her elected official supervisor regarding his or her intent to retire at least 90 days in advance of the contemplated retirement date. Absent good cause shown, failure to give notice may result in a negative write-up in the employee's personnel file. Adding to section 5.36, employee relation provisions, training and career development, the treasurer and assistant treasurer may be paid an annual incentive once per calendar year for each 40-year 40-hour training unit successfully completed based on continuing service in that office up to four incentive payments per calendar year. Each annual incentive payment shall be based on the Department for Local Government's annual rate used for elected officials training incentive Adjusted by DLG yearly for consumer price index, training hours can be accumulated for any training relevant to official duties offered by a variety of agencies, professional associations, and private vendors. The treasurer and assistant treasurer will provide training documentation to the fiscal court once 40 hours of training in a calendar year are achieved for approval and payment. Amending 5.51, meal costs. Striking consistent with the General Services Administration and replacing that with reimbursable based on a per diem as may be set from time to time by the Marshall County Fiscal Courts. All right, amending the drug-free workplace policy. The language in the drug-free workplace policy has changed from the Labor Cabinet and This reflects the changes there and provides the definitions of drugs.

Let's see.

And section five of that, the drug and alcohol testing, since the last admin code update, it replaces the old list with the new list cleanly. And those are the, I need to read those out loud, the specific drugs, the list of drugs tested when we do random drug screens. That is what we have. First reading was July 2nd. The second reading on July 16th.

Okay. Say one more thing before we ask for a motion on this. The change on the hours of comp time, there was previously no cap on that, and that's creating a situation for us that we could not budget for. Most employees aren't going to give us, in some cases, it could be as little as two weeks' notice on retirement. That's why we added the language in there. But we've prepared our budget. We're into our new budget, and if we have someone retire this year that has six months, a year and a half, whatever of comp time that's going to be used as well as their vacation, they may be checking out of work on January 1 and not retiring until December 31. So that puts us in a real bind. It's not budgeted to hire a replacement. for that position and um you know that's that's one of the reasons there for that give us something more manageable and um so um anyway that's that um do i have a motion to approve and adopt the admin code changes so moved or second second discussion all right go ahead um

So, I guess, is the comp time, okay, I see it now, never mind, on that hour by hour basis, all right. I think, you know, I think, What this, to me, does, I'm not against it by any means. What I hope it doesn't do, and I've talked to you about this, is those department heads, some of them are department heads on here, but it really focuses on, okay, you have that cap now. If you're getting close to that, you need to go ahead and start taking some of that time And then also it just means we need those who are, not we, but those who are doing that just need to be cognizant of coming in early, staying late, whatever it is. I know there are times you just can't control that, but I think we're just going to have to hear from those of you that are affected by this afterwards if it becomes difficult.

And you had mentioned requiring them to get that down possibly being a burden on the departments. And I wouldn't necessarily agree with that, but it's not near as much of a burden if, say, Erica's employee had taken off for six months. during that course of announcing retirement so um you know having someone take a couple days a month opposed to not being there at all for six months oh i yeah i fully agree and you and i've talked about that i know we're taking a some specific uh situations here i just think we're

I just want to make sure we're doing this, that it's the best for everyone. We're not just taking one situation and saying, because of this, we need to do this. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I totally agree with you when it comes to the retirement piece of it. And I agree on it as a whole. Honestly, you and I have talked about this before. I mean, I've been salaried in every single job I did, and I did not get any comp time. for over 40. So I think even getting the one-to-one and up to 200 to me is extremely beneficial for those who are in this position. I just don't want it to be a burden on.

Yeah. Oh, me neither. And this does not affect the hourly employees at all. There's a statutory cap on that of 240 hours. Yeah.

Ed, I interrupted before you were about to say something. No, that's fine. You said a lot of what I was going to say. We're unique in the county government as far as a lot of our departments don't have the choice to go home. That was my only concern coming in. If we've got several department heads that are already over that cap, how do we take a mission-critical department and especially when they use a lot of their comp time that they're accruing is to cover shifts for other people kind of thing. But I feel good about it now. As long as they're not losing the time that they've already accrued, I think we can manage through that and just kind of lean on them to manage their own comp time a little bit that way. You don't have those huge payouts. I remember as sheriff, we used to have to budget an entire unit an entire extra employee's salary just for payouts. Yeah. When people retired, that was an extra $50,000 just for when people retired. And it, you know, number one, it keeps from being able to hire that person to be on the road. So it's a balancing act with a very, very slim balancer thingy that I would fall off of. Yeah.

Well, and to be clear, Again, we're talking about one, two, three, four, five, I mean, seven or eight positions, I think. So the positive part about that is it shouldn't be an onerous process to... And a significant amount of people who are having to take that two days... But, I mean.

Reiterate again, this does not include hourly employees. Yeah.

Okay.

We had a second on that, too, didn't we?

I seconded it, yeah.

Anybody else?

Anything to say? Okay. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. KOHS application. Mr. Kirtner had to be somewhere. I'm going to cover that for him. He's wanting permission for us to apply and sign a KOHS grant also. That underwater drone is very expensive, so trying to go after two grants to cover that. Y'all are in favor for that?

So moved.

Motion to approve and sign?

Second.

Apply and sign, sorry. Motion and second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. I really have high hopes that we can get that, and I told him I could get him letters of support on that, being situated where we are, obviously, with the lakes and the mutual aid. Mutual aid, we offer the surrounding counties. It would be a great tool for us to have. Let's see. The second one here. EMS is... Wanting to apply for two power lift stretchers.

Homeland Security grant.

To apply and sign, that's KOHS also.

Oh, it's KOHS, okay.

Those are 100% if they get them.

So moved.

Second. Motion second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Any opposed? Motion carries. I wish they could apply for an ambulance. That'd be cool. $250,000 ambulance. Yeah.

Well, those stretchers are... $30,000, aren't they? You said they've doubled the last four years. I'd say substantially more than that.

Yeah.

$60,000.

$60,000. $65,000 for two.

For two, yeah.

yeah uh okay um the playground uh that's kind of a work in progress when we laid that out uh kind of thought about pouring additional concrete over to the rubberized surface uh josh come back up there and uh with miracle playgrounds and made a suggestion i'm uh all for it myself. This would not be any additional burden for tax dollars. We received a $79,000 crumb rubber grant. So this would come out of that to run the rubberized surface all the way over to the existing concrete. it would be an additional $11,400, and that's for everything covering that. If you all will entertain that. I need a motion on that that would come out of the crumb rubber grant. So moved. Second. Motion and second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion carries. Fencing. are required to have fencing around that we want fencing around that from a safety standpoint for the kids i talked to jason a little bit about that yesterday it will be fully enclosed with two gates the proposed fencing met with brian up there and clint with cnc and After talking through that with Clint, Brian and I both think a four-foot, and according to what Jason provided, four-foot is a minimum required height on that, would give aesthetically a better view and everything and tie-in better than a five-foot. So a four-foot... four foot, excuse me, this would be aluminum. This would be the same type fencing that we have at the pavilions and the fence that we replaced at the playground down by the main pavilion. So it's that aluminum, all aluminum fence, four foot tall. And it would, the backside of it, it would tie into the existing chain link fence, come all the way around the perimeter of the playground. It would come back to... Existing concrete, it would run on the concrete back down past the entrance to the dugout and tie in there. There would be a gate about two-thirds of the way up, wouldn't you say, Brian? About two-thirds of the way up from the dugout toward the front, and then there would be another gate on the other side. The price on that is $24,185. Once again, I'd recommend that be paid out of this crumb rubber grant money. Crumb rubber grant money is obviously going for the crumb rubber portion of it, but we've got $79,000 there that we had. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, the fence. Yeah, thank you, Brian. Yeah, the fence would be black to match everything up there. The other fencing is white. So it would be black to match the chain link and our color theme that we have going on there. Right now where they are on this, Mother Nature has been angry this year. As soon as it dries, it's dry enough now. Talked to the concrete guy this morning, and he's going to move up there to do the pad under the pavilion part where the picnic tables go next Thursday. After that's done, Josh will get his crew in there. They put rock down before the... rubberized surface after the rocks down the concrete curbing is installed then they put additional rock up to it then they do the rubberized surface after that's done would be when the fencing is done so we approve second okay we got a motion to approve the fencing of twenty four thousand one hundred eighty five dollars and a second any discussion on that not all those in favor any opposed motion carries we've looked at also i had commissioner barrett up there looking at it uh with me and roy and i think this is this is something for another day but we all agree um the side over closest to the entry coming into the park, main entry, that's probably going to be cut back and put a retaining wall there because we can add about, what do you say, Marty, 20, 25 parking spots if we do that?

Yeah, 20, 20.

Diagonally down through there. Right now, the dirt's just tapered out to the driveway, but by doing that, we can make all of that parking spots and not interfere with the ingress and egress of the driveway. So that's something I'm supposed to meet with Shannon, our maintenance superintendent, sometime in the next few days and go look at some different options on that. Roy had indicated they could do the site work for that, dig the trench, fill it up with rock, get everything leveled. And they actually make those, what did you say, like five or six foot long? They do. So this may be something we can do the entire project ourself rather than have to hire someone. Make what? The retaining wall. They make it, Roy said, like six foot lengths and what are they, two foot tall or something?

Yeah, closer to three, I think. Two to three foot. Yeah.

So, yeah, we should be able to do that pretty reasonable if we can do it all ourself. But that will prepare that for additional parking because if you've been to a game, the parking lots are full. And as this thing continues to grow, especially with the playground, I think they're going to fill up even more. So just trying to think ahead a little bit on that. Okay, grant agreement. We finally have received that for the senior citizen renovation and need a motion to approve and for me to sign that. So moved. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Ordinance 202607, Speed Limit, Harbortown Road. First reading, Mr. Pagel.

All right, I think I woke up now. I can read. Speed Limit Ordinance, Commonwealth of Kentucky, County of Marshall, Speed Limit, Ordinance number 202607, be it ordained by the Fiscal Court of Marshall County, Commonwealth of Kentucky, in accordance with the provisions set forth in KRS 189.390, Section 5A, and based upon the request of effective... Affected citizens and after review by the Marshall County Road Department and the Marshall County Sheriff, the Marshall County Fiscal Court does hereby set the speed limit at 15 miles per hour for the following road located in Marshall County, Kentucky, Harbortown Road. The foregoing ordinance shall be published in the Tribune Courier. After the second reading. Okay, so the first reading is in today, July 16th, 2026.

Thank you. Board appointments. Motion to reappoint Carolyn Allen to Marsh County Seniors Board term to expire 6-30-29. So moved.

Second.

Motion second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. I need a motion to appoint Jonathan Baker to West Marshall Fire Board, term to expire 6-30-29. So moved.

Second.

Motion second. Any discussion? All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion carries. Mr. Fagel, personnel.

Okay. So these are largely corrections when the salary schedule is being processed? Yes. Things were happening during all the interim of that. So JoLynn Coulson, for example, she got a service adjustment, effective 7-1-26, for $22.66 an hour. She is a dispatcher.

So anyone ask about this one? So we have a separate motion on all those?

They could be treated separately pretty easy, because they're different circumstances, but largely the same. So she crossed over into a higher salary bracket, because she's been here for two years. Years of service. But when you approved her salary schedule,

set where she was prior.

Does that make any sense?

OK.

These are the kind of things that happen.

So we didn't. I thought we budgeted for some of those. So we didn't. Is that what we're saying?

We budgeted for them, yes. But the actual salary schedule that had a person's name and an amount where you basically are hiring those people again for July 1 at the rate, that part didn't reflect these. OK. These changes might have happened in the month between it being prepared and the final reading of that.

But the important piece to this is we budgeted for it.

Right. To my knowledge, all the ones he's going to read yes are things that were budgeted.

Let me repeat this one just because it was muddled. E911 dispatcher Jolene Coulson, wage change, effective 7-1-26 to go to $22.66 an hour as a service adjustment.

Need a motion to approve the salary change. So moved. Second. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Proceed.

E911, dispatcher Noah Jackson, wage change effective 7-1-26, wage rate at $22.66 an hour.

Motion to approve salary change. So moved. Second.

Motion second. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. E911 Dispatcher Attack Officer Tara Martin. Wage change effective 7-1-26 at $26.78 an hour.

Motion to approve. And is there a second? Second. Motion second. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries.

Same department, E911 dispatcher McKenzie McDonald. Wage change effective $7126 at $24.72 an hour.

In motion to approve salary change?

So moved. Motion.

Second.

Second.

Motion second. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries.

Sheriff's department. Deputy Sheriff Barry Howell. Wage change $29.36 per hour. Move to approve. Second.

Motion and second to approve. All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Sheriff's Department. Deputy Sheriff Jesse Hicks. Wage change. Effective 7-1-26 at $30.90 an hour. Move to approve. Second.

Motion second. All those in favor?

Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Final one here. Animal Control Officer Lindsey Dixon, wage change, $16 an hour, effective $7,126.

Move to approve. Second. Motion and second. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries.

We do have a new hire. Okay.

Andy mentioned animal control. They are very, very crowded out there. If you know of anyone thinking about adopting an animal, please send them out there. The one I adopted several months ago wouldn't take a farm in Texas for him.

Just don't walk up to the house without being... Without you with him, right? He's very protective.

He's very thankful of his home. I'll just say that. He's very thankful.

He's not down with Brown.

Don't walk up on him. That's all we're saying. Don't walk up on him. Dogs just don't like you.

He's not down with Brown. Not at all.

It hasn't happened to me. I'm just saying. I'm just saying.

New hires, Mr. Cagle. Okay, we have Raymond Claypool, seasonal, road department, $15 an hour, effective $7,726. Moot approved.

Second.

Second. Motion to second. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Erica, you're on deck.

Bank transfers are the only transfers that I have for this court meeting. There are two that are deposit corrections. One is a movement of the interest out of the ARPA account. And then the final five are all budgeted subsidy from occupational tax to the five funds that are subsidized by that.

Move we approve the transfers. Second.

Motion, second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. The motion to pay the bills. Pay the bills. Second. Motion and second. Any discussion on the bills? All those in favor? Any opposed? Motion carries. Just want to mention one thing. We've got our first out of a series of five movie nights Saturday night at dusk down in the lower soccer fields. Please bring your lawn chair and come out and join us. Concession stand's going to be open. Snow cone's going to be there. Lake Kim is sponsoring this five-movie series. We're thankful that they've partnered with us on this. So Wicked for Good, I think, is the first movie.

That's one of your favorites. That's good. That's my absolute all-time. Wicked for Good.

Next to Roadhouse. Yes. So, you know.

Yeah, those are two very similar, I think, Roadhouse and Wicked.

Yeah. Patrick Swayze and Sam Elliott in the same movie. I mean, it doesn't get any better than that. I'm pretty sure, I may be speaking out of turn here, but I'm pretty sure Brian and Bree is scheduling one for the night of Boo Bash also. So that ought to be a day and evening full of fun. So anyway.

Maybe that one should have been wicked. You know what I mean? Scooby-Doo. Oh, Scooby-Doo. Monty's favorite, Scooby-Doo.

Yeah. Okay, we have an executive session. I need a motion to go into executive session, discuss litigation and personnel for KRS-61810-1CNL. So moved. Second. Okay, we'll call the meeting back to order. Just need a motion to adjourn.

So moved.

Second.

Second.

All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries.