Fiscal Court - Regular Meeting

Okay. Mr. Pagel, would you pray first, please? Heavenly Father, we thank you for this opportunity to come together and take care of some of the business that's in front of us. Lord, pray for the decisions made here and that they'll do well for the county and please you. Lord, there's a lot going on out in the county that you know about, maybe we don't know about, with people's sickness and situations that only you can provide the hope for, Lord. And I hope that people can look to you to fill that void. Look after us, for it's your name we pray. Amen.

Amen. Stand with me for the pledge, please.

I pledge allegiance 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.

Okay, we'll call this July 27th, 2026, special called meeting to order. Our first item is Executive Session, Litigation and Economic Development. Need a motion to go into Executive Session to discuss Litigation and Economic Development per KRS 61810, 1C and G. So moved. Second? Second. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Okay, we'll call this meeting back to order. Do I have a motion regarding the economic development?

All right. So I'll make a motion to allow the county judge executive to sign a letter of support to the Cabinet for Economic Development on behalf of an applicant for the Kentucky Business Incentive Program contingent upon the city of Benton's subsequent approval.

Second. Motion second. Any discussion on that? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. The next item here, we put a lot of work into this. I want to thank our jailer, Roger Ford. He's put a lot of work into this. Our incoming jailer, Barry Howe, as well. And hopefully, hopefully, This afternoon we'll have something signed on this. It's looking promising. Roger, you got something you want to say?

Well, you may know also, Judge, but I just received a call just a few minutes ago that we did get the contract, part of the contract. We didn't get the full contract, which we can't hold them all anyway, so.

Very good, very good. Yeah, as soon as I get that, I'll get you to look over in the county attorney and get a copy of it to the commissioners and make sure everything's in there we need in there and get that thing signed because there's going to have to be some transporting done pretty soon.

Yeah, yeah, pretty soon, yeah. Things are going to start rolling here shortly, yeah.

Yeah, very good, very good. Do we all need to?

a van and and uh you're offering yeah is that thing in the morning has that been discussed getting them all here from christian yeah yeah they will be moved from christian county um and judge i don't know if it'll be when we get the contract signed or if it will be the first of october i don't know or i'm sorry august uh i don't know when that'll be, but I know, I think they've got 30 days to get them moved.

So they're transporting from Christian. Yeah.

They will transport them to us. Okay. Cool.

Oh, okay. All right. All right.

And I think, uh, I think I heard the other day, they've got 80 or 85 inmates, I think right now. So, you know, yeah, we're going to population going to grow pretty quick.

All right.

Um, if I can, while I'm here, um, I did find out something also the other day that could actually save us probably $20,000 or better at the jail also. And I know that there's been questions about the opiate settlement money. But we can pay our MRT instructor and our books and stuff that we need for the MRT classes. We can pay for that out of the opiate money. And there is some medical and dental that can be paid out of the open money also.

Very good. I've been in contact with Lauren through CACO, and she's going to. come in and talk to us. She sent me a grant applications and, and some other things. So I'm going to sit down with her and anything we do there. Um, I want to run through the AG's office also because they had the ultimate say so. And if these funds are being used appropriately or not, the last thing we want to do is do something and then have to pay the money back.

Right. Right. Yeah. I had spoke to Lauren also. She actually had spoke at our conference and, And I'd talk to some other judders, and then I actually called her a couple weeks ago just to verify that I understood that correct, and that's what she told me.

Is Keiko, is she doing a, you know, for all those, I had a call as well from CASA, and I think we have a call from, I can't remember. I've got to call them back, but do they, does Keiko actually, ask for an AG opinion on the ones that they say are approved?

Do you know? I don't know the answer to that question. I certainly will myself. I'm going to be signing the checks, so I want confirmation from them. Because a lot of this is so vague, and there's things you would think you could use this for. Of all things, they're not allowing drug court in the county of county attorney will tell you the success rate coming out of that but you know the funds can't be used for that so some of those things i kept thinking you know in time they would come around and give into some of that which is a no-brainer but so far they haven't but ultimately the ag has a say so in that so i certainly want them to sign off on anything we do not questioning uh Lauren or Keiko or anything like that, but they're the ones that could be asking us to repay the money.

Do you have counties now that are already doing that?

Yeah, I know that there was a couple that told me at the conference they was. And that's the reason I thought, well, I'm going to reach out to Lauren and

And we'll probably get three or four or half a dozen things and have Jason reach out to A.G. Coleman and get an opinion on all of them.

Which receiving these Grays County inmates, I mean, even when we was holding them before, if once they become a state inmates and their classification come back as a one or two, they they got those inmates back to put in their restricted custody center. But with that being said, some of these inmates are coming back as level threes, which is going to help our programs also some because they can't hold level three. So that will help our program somewhat. Just kind of want to throw that out there.

Good deal. Did we, I know we're about to vote on this, and we're going to work with them on that whole, because that was an issue that, a year ago or whatever, is if they're in a program, they are staying until they're out of that program, correct?

Yes, I cleared that last week.

Okay. Yes. In other words, I didn't see that in there, but that's more of a gentleman's agreement. Okay.

For example, if they're a level three, their level can be reclassified to a one or two. But if they're in a class as a level three, we will keep them.

Until they're through that program.

I don't know. Now, I worked on that contract just a little bit more the other day. Y'all probably, because actually we sent this Friday afternoon, really about the only change that we had. They kind of wanted very similar things. bids with us and Callaway. So everybody's on the same playing field because this is going to be a three-county. I mean, we're going to really have to work close with them with our courts and stuff like that. So our per diem did go up 50 cents. We're at $34.50 now. So I mean, I think Callaway's at $35. We was at $34. So we kind of met in the middle, especially because we're doing the transports. We tried to We tried to say, hey, we'll get them there if you all get them back, but that didn't work. But, yeah, so, but okay. Yeah, thank you for looking up. Okay. Thank you, Roger.

Thanks, Rog.

Okay, speaking of jail contract, do I have a motion pertaining to that?

I would move to approve and sign the contract between the Marshall County Fiscal Court and the Graves County Fiscal Court for housing Graves County inmates. pending our county attorney's approval and the Grays County approval.

Second. Motion, second. Any discussion?

Just again, thanks to everybody that worked on this, because I don't know how many times we've talked about this over the more than 12 months, and I think it was great to be able to have Roger and the The jailer in Graves County and Callaway County that have those relationships and then those relationships that we all have with those three fiscal courts made a huge difference. So thanks, Roger, for all the work on that and all those who have been involved. Absolutely.

Okay, motion second. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. If there's nothing else, just need a motion to adjourn.

So moved.

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