Woodford County Fiscal Court - Regular Meeting

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I'll call this meeting of the Woodford County Fiscal Court to order. Madam Clerk, would you please call the roll?

Scar Taylor. Here. Scar Gentry. Here. Scar Warner. Here. Scar Carl. Here. Scar Downey. Here. Scar Blackburn. Here. Scar Gill. Here. Scar Brown.

Here. Thank you. Offering our invocation this evening is Rev. Hannah McIntyre of Pisgah Presbyterian Church.

Thank you, Coach, and... Glad everybody got here safely and as they prepare to head back to school Thursday. Inspire them, protect them, encourage them, and teach them. I pray that you would be glorified tonight through the decisions of this city council. I pray that they would have the eyes to see how our lives are all connected and how our common good is upheld when we listen and respect each other and hold up before us those most vulnerable. We pray for wisdom. We pray for strength. We pray for courage to do what is right and good for all citizens here in Woodford County. May we put the interests of others above our own. And may we act with respect for each person in this community. May each of our decisions get closer to the world that you desire for us. And oh God, on this night when storms are raging and wind is blowing and rain is pouring, be with those who have no home. Be with those who are out in the elements. Be with the EMS and Rhodes crew and all those who are traveling towards trouble instead of away. And we pray all of this in your son's name. Amen. Amen.

If you're able.

I'd like to begin our meeting with a special recognition.

I'd like to recognize our intern, Miss Kate Melanson.

The fiscal court and my office are pleased to recognize Ms. Kate Melanson for her outstanding service and contributions to Woodford County during her time as an intern. Throughout her internship, Kate has distinguished herself through her drive, independence, dependability, and willingness to learn and become a valued member of our office, approaching each responsibility with maturity, enthusiasm, and a strong work ethic. Kate's time in Woodford County has provided her with an opportunity to learn about public service and local government while making meaningful contributions to our community. Kate will soon begin a new chapter at the University of Kentucky while she will pursue a degree in law and justice with a minor in Spanish, continuing to pursue her goals in the same determination and ambition that she has demonstrated here in the courthouse. The fiscal court proudly recognizes Kate for her service and for her tremendous potential that she possesses and the many accomplishments that she has achieved and undoubtedly lie ahead for her. It has been a privilege to have Kate as part of the team and we are grateful for the opportunity to see her and her bright future ahead of her. Ladies and gentlemen, please give it up for Kate Melanson. I told you I wouldn't do this, but would you like to say a few words, Kate?

I'm just really grateful for this opportunity and I have met so many people that I know will be great connections for my future and I'm really proud to be a member forever in this office and to be a citizen of Woodford County. Thank you for everything.

Thank you, Kate. Thank you. It's on that note of a celebratory moment that I would like to move on to a solemn moment. As many of you are aware, Woodford County and the city of Midway lost Jason Michael Butler, who passed away on August 5th unexpectedly at the age of 44. Born on September 5th in 1981, Jason was the beloved son of Jerry and Donna Butler. He was the devoted husband to his wife, Sarah Butler, with whom he shared 20 wonderful years of marriage. Together they built a life centered on love and family and the outdoors. Jason leaves behind the cherished memory of his loving wife, Sarah, and his two precious sons, Jed and Jude Butler. His parents, Jerry and Donna Butler, His sisters, Cassie and Brock Johnson, Stevie and Tyler Trent, and his sister Emily. He also leaves behind his grandmother, Shirley, his father and mother-in-law, Greg and Kathy Moore, his sisters-in-law, and their husbands as well, along with many extended family members. Jason and Sarah were the members of many communities. They moved around a little bit, but they found their home here in Woodford County and in Midway. They loved exploring the outdoors and living in different parts of the country, but their heart remained rooted in Kentucky and indeed in Woodford County. Jason loved his family with all of his heart. He had a deep and lifelong passion for nature that began in his childhood. He was outgoing, quick with a joke, and rarely met a stranger. His infectious smile and adventurous spirit and the ability to make others laugh made him someone that people naturally gravitated towards. Jason lived this life to the fullest and he embraced each day with energy, curiosity, and gratitude. And by all accounts, Jason was taken to be with the Lord much too soon, leaving his grieving family. I had the opportunity to know Jason as a captain of the Woodford County Bass Fishing Team. He had just taken his team and his son to compete in the Nationals. A great honor for bass fishermen and those that love the outdoors. While the Butler family only were members of our community for a small time, they will forever be Woodford Countians and they will forever be in our hearts. And tonight we honor the love, the legacy, and the memory of Jason Michael Butler. If you would, please join me in a moment of silence. Amen. Thank you, members of the court. Thank you for our guests, for everyone indulging us. in that solemn honor. I would like to, before we move on to public comment, I'd like to have the approval of the minutes of the special and the regular minutes meetings of July 28, 2026 and the special minutes of August 4, 2026. I just want to make one important note regarding the special meeting minutes of August 4th. The fiscal court went into executive session pursuant to the statute in order to discuss the pending litigation. And we also had in our special meeting and in the executive session, our counsel from Keiko, Mr. Barry Stills and the county attorney. In that discussion, There were privileged conversations with our attorney. But when I came out of that meeting, I responded there was no action taken. I want it to be clear that there was no motion, second, and vote which represents action. And by virtue of law, I needed to state that no action was taken. But that does not mean that there is no action taken in regards to the pending litigation or the issues that surround it. I would also like to give a brief committee report The Ordinance Committee met prior here too, as did the Committee of the Whole. And the Committee of the Whole undertook a vote to place EMS Director on administrative leave. This administrative action was taken pending a comprehensive review of the department's personnel matters, operational protocols, and supervisory response related to the recent lawsuit. This fiscal court recognizes the seriousness of the allegations that were made in that complaint. We also hear the community and your calls for accountability and openness. In an effort towards transparency, the county is currently going through the process of looking into retaining a professional third party firm to conduct of the EMS Department's administrative actions and policies. The Fiscal Court's highest priority is maintaining a safe, respectful workplace for all emergency personnel and county employees, ensuring the public's trust in our emergency services and the Fiscal Court. This matter involves active civil litigation and ongoing personnel reviews, and as such, There are little details that can be disclosed at this time. But as we move forward, we will continue to be transparent and provide updates at the appropriate time in the process. That being the sum of the Committee of the Whole, there was a motion thereon to place the EMS Director on administrative leave I would entertain a motion to renew that motion for the full court's review. Motion. Motion by Squire Taylor. Second. Second by Squire Gentry. All those in favor please vote and signify by saying aye.

Aye.

All those opposed nay. And that motion carries unanimously. I'll return to the Ordinance Committee discussion which was a little bit more in depth. Before we do that, I want to recognize folks for public comment. Those wishing to make a comment to the fiscal court and or the public, the floor is open. I would let folks know if this is your first time at a fiscal court meeting, this is your opportunity to discuss things for public comment. It is not a discussion and there will be no response from the fiscal court. Our job and under our rules is to listen. So if any member of the public wishes to make a public comment, the floor is open to you. Yes, ma'am, you're recognized.

Thank you. My name is Pamela Knight. I have been a lifelong resident of Woodford County. I have followed and have been informed about all that's gone on with this ongoing destroying of a man who has served this community for over 37 years. And if there's ongoing litigation, why is that not playing out before you start the process of getting rid of this man? Because ongoing litigation, I believe, will show that there's more to this The media has destroyed him. The people on Facebook and voices over sales that don't know him are seeing a snippet of a video. And by that, they have made their decision. That interview was over an hour long. There was much more said in that video than that snippet. And I think it's so unfair to him that he has been destroyed by this. You have no idea. This man has been destroyed. destroyed he has given everything he's got to this county and now he doesn't he he doesn't even want to leave the house and does anybody care does any anybody on facebook that's running their mouth and any does anybody care i care and i i hope a lot of other people care too because any of you this could happen to any of you And all of a sudden you're caught up in this big controversy and your name is just destroyed. It could happen to any of us. And so don't be fooled. And you know what? Everybody will throw you under the bus. Everybody sitting here will throw you under the bus. So I just wanted to say my piece. I'm very disappointed that he hasn't had the support that he should have had from you, James. I'm very sorry that he hasn't had that. And he will move on. He will keep going. He has family that loves him. He has many people that have called him, texted him, support him. Now, they won't come out. They won't come out, but I will. And I'm just very saddened. I'm very saddened because, like I said, it could happen to anybody. It could happen to anybody. I'd hate to take a snippet of something I said and have it broadcast on the freaking news over and over and on Facebook and on Voices for Sales and all these people condemning me, they don't even know me, for a snippet. All of us have said things this much that we wouldn't want anybody else to hear. All of us. If you haven't, you will. So thank you for letting me speak. I do appreciate being able to say what I need to say. And I support Freeman Bailey forever. He's a good man. He's a good man who the news took and the people took a snippet of something he said and destroyed his life. So, thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, my name's Clay Knight. I'm a center college student pursuing medicine, and I had the opportunity this summer to shadow the EMS director and do some ride-alongs with him. And I just wanted to take a second to highlight his character. He served this county for over 30 years, and I just don't think this is fair whatsoever. The interview was an hour long, like what she was saying, and I'd like to reinforce that. And I think putting him on administrative leave to say that you're ass is not okay.

Please do not use curse words in the courtroom.

Right. Yeah, I've gone on five ride-alongs with him. He has saved countless lives in front of me. And I just don't think that this has played out how it should. And I do believe that that full interview should be released to the public, however we need to do that. And I just hope that this goes the direction it goes. Thank you.

Thank you, young man. I would admonish anyone to refrain from using curse words or foul language in the courtroom. We had a good record of not having that happen up until this point. But I would just remember folks that there are rules and that we need to abide by those rules. But you do you do have a public comment. The floor is open.

Hello. My name is Hannah Morgan and I am a resident of Woodford County. I initially wanted to come here today to express concerns with the way the court and county leadership was handling these very serious claims and allegations that were made. However, after being here for the first few minutes, what I was going to say is going to shift a little bit. I think when I and others look at this story, wasn't just about harassment, but it was about the county's procedures for handling serious claims like these. I'm pleased to hear that changes are in the works to ensure a safer work environment for public servants. I'm happy to hear their plans for a transparent and possibly independent investigation, and hopefully that will lead to accountability where it's appropriate. However, the main reason I still wanted to get up to speak was because I wanted to say that I hope the young lady associated with this case and any other person who has or will experience harassment feels supported in Woodford County. I hope speaking your truth doesn't have to feel terrifying, but can feel like the catalyst for change. Thank you.

Thank you. The floor is open for anybody wishing to make a public comment. GOING ONCE. GOING TWICE. HERE'S A THIRD AND FINAL CALL. ANYBODY WISHING TO MAKE A PUBLIC COMMENT THIS EVENING? SEEING NONE, WE WILL MOVE ON TO COMMITTEE REPORTS. THE ORDINANCE COMMITTEE MET PRIOR HERE, TOO, AND WE HAD AN IN-DEPTH DISCUSSION OF THE NUISANCE AND CODE ENFORCEMENT ORDINANCES. WE WORKED THROUGH THAT PROCESS And I believe we made some headway in working on a path forward along with Director Steve Hunter and with Squire Mary Ann Gill and Squire Blackford. That is the sum of the committee reports. I did share the committee report on the Committee of the Whole prior here too. And we'll remove on to our... Other reports. I do have with us the former mayor of the city of Midway, Mr. Tom Bozarth, who had two items which he wanted to bring to the court's attention. And so we will allow Tom to talk about the Woodford County Public Schools Hall of Fame and the candidate forum.

Thank you, Judge. Thank you, court. It's a pleasure to be here. I appreciate the time. I want to talk about first, first thing I want to talk about is our Woodford County Public Schools Hall of Fame, which we have our induction ceremony coming up the end of the month. It's the 28th and 29th. It's during the halftime of the football game. We'll have all of our inductees introduced to the to the crowd and then Saturday we have a reception before the induction and the induction ceremony starts at 7 o'clock. So this is our 13th class that we've inducted into the hall. So far, we've inducted over 150 individuals, 10 teams that had excellence in Woodford County. And so this is a great opportunity for everybody to come out and I see some great individuals are going to be honored. This year's class, we have Terry Morford for academics, Taylor Phillips for academics, Ian Horn for athletics, Jay Lucas for athletics, Terry Smith for career, Joanne Gormley for patron, Bob Law for patron, Matt Preston for public service, Coach Davey Whitney for legacy, and our team this year is the 1977 State Wrestling High School Champions. So that's our class for this year. I have an invitation for each of you.

I'll just go past these online.

Judge, you already have your invitation, so I'm not going to give you one.

I'll be working the event.

But anyway, we'd love to have you if you can take the time to experience that. My second thing I want to talk about tonight, and I'll make it brief, is we're going to have election forms coming up. We've got five forms that are going to be scheduled in September. We have one. The first one is in Midway, September 14th. And that form is going to include the Woodford County Jailer, District 1 Magistrate, and the Midway City Council. And our emcee for that night is going to be Miranda Combs, who was a former Fox 56 anchor. And then our second form coming up It's going to be September 22nd at the Woodford County High School in the auditorium. And this forum will feature the Versailles City Council and Versailles Mayoral candidates. The moderator is going to be Marvin Bartlett, the former 56 anchor. And then our third forum is going to be held September 24th. at the uh Woodford County High School Auditorium and it will feature candidates from the fiscal court uh Magistrate Districts 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, and 8 and Marvin Bartlett will be the moderator also. And our fourth and final forum will be held Thursday, October 1st at the Woodford County High School Auditorium. It will feature candidates uh for Woodford County Clerk, Woodford County Attorney, and Woodford County Judge Executive, and Marvin Bartlett will be the moderator for that one also. All four forums will be held from 6 to 8. And we are going to get public questions. The public can submit questions. And Scott, if you'll put this in the Woodford Sun, it'd be helpful. Send the email to forum at woodfordsun.com. But anyway, we've got four. This was a collaborative effort with the Woodford County Democratic Party, the Woodford County Republican Party, the Farm Bureau, and the Woodford Sun. And so these four entities came together and we all worked together to put this together. And this is something I think is very, it's going to be good for the community, good for this election season. It's a good time for everyone to come and and learn about our candidates. And it'll be well done. So I mean, I hope that everybody will come and show up and participate in it. Any questions on that?

Are there any questions for Tom Bozar?

One last quick thing. This will be the first election in a long time that we haven't had Squire Brown on the ticket, along with our county attorney on the ticket. And I just want to take this time and thank both of them because I've had the opportunity to be able to work with them. for their service to Whitford County, and it's a job well done. And I'm going to tell you, you all have left a lot of big shoes to be filled. So thank you both for everything you've done, and I appreciate it. Thank you.

And Mayor Bozarth, let me also commend you in your role as citizen, Bozarth, helping to make sure that we have forums and that our democracy is flourishing under forums and the opportunity for people to hear from the candidates. Thank you.

Thank you, Judge. I appreciate it. Thank you all for the time.

Thank you. Thank you. Next up, we do have our school board tax rate presentation. I'd like to invite Dr. Lori Jones, Dr. Jason Gribbons, and other members of the school board. I know we have our board chair here, Mr. Adam Brickler. We also have member Sarah McCown with us. And I believe we have you connected there.

Well, good evening. Thank you for having us. We really appreciate each one of you and um it's really important to me to just thank you for your partnership to me my first year superintendent i have felt the the support of this fiscal court and i can't thank you enough for that so thank you so much for that thank you dr jones and we do appreciate your leadership at our schools thank you with our most precious assets i agree So today we had our opening day ceremony at our new high school. And it was a really great day. We debuted, kicked off our new logo and our motto, Legacy of Excellence, Future of Opportunity. And it's just been a really good day. So we're glad to end it here with you all. Get connected here.

While you are doing that, I was reminded that we do still need to approve the minutes of the special and regular meeting. We did the special minute meetings of August 4th, but we also have the meeting of July 28th, 2026, both special and regular. Are there any additions or corrections to any of the minutes that have been presented? Seeing none, are there any objections to approving the minutes as presented?

seeing none I will approve the minutes without objection okay so we have kicked off based on a community feedback we've kicked off our strategic vision for the next four years and we're really excited about it and one of the pillars under that is stewardship and we very much heard from our community and heard from our employees our students our families in saying that stewardship is something that we value as a community and a school system and so it is one of our key pillars of our strategic vision and strategic plan and that that basically means taking care of have using best practices for budgeting purchasing staffing and maintenance to make sure that what our community trusts to us that we're taking good care of it And so that's one of our pillars. And we're going to talk about that one briefly tonight. Something that's specific to school budget and finance is that we are, it's very weird in that we are asked to, our board is asked to pass a draft budget at the end of January. And at that point, we do not know what our revenue is going to look like. And yet we are asked to go ahead and adopt a budget, a draft budget. And then based on preliminary numbers and that sort of thing, we look at the board then is required by law to set a tentative budget by May 30th. Again, still no final numbers at that point. So we are setting a budget, just not sure what the revenue is going to look like for sure. We have projections at that point from the state, but we're not sure what it's going to look like. And then by September 30th, we are required to set a working budget then. And at that point, we do have final numbers about what does our state funding look like for our students in Woodford County and what does our local funding look like. So when I started last year, the board hired me in May of last year and I started July 1 and the board's priorities for me were to establish a vision and to balance the budget. and those were the two two charges from the board and so immediately our team got started and we looked at our we did a very deep dive into our finances of the school system we we incorporated or asked several people to help us with that and we looked at line by line by line of the budget and it was my recommendation to our board at that time based on what what my um investigation told me that we had three options at that point we could hold the rate and that would have generated over two million dollars in new revenue for our school system we could have taken the compensating rate or we could take the four percent rate the board based on A lot of different factors including the economy, including public comment, just really looked at and said we still believe that we need to look at ourselves first before we ask for any additional funding from our community. We went on a journey of, they passed the 4% rate, and that meant that we needed to cut $3 million for the upcoming school year, which is this school year. But as soon as we got into that process, I realized that we couldn't wait until this next school year to start cutting. And so the budget that the board passed in May before I got here was projected to leave us at a $1.8 million contingency. And the contingency is our savings account. And that savings account has to keep us going, pay our bills until November when the taxes begin to come in. So the $1.8 million contingency is about, that would have left us at about 4%. The state actually requires that we have at least 2% in that fund. And so we, the board said, we're getting very close and this is not okay. We need you to fix this. And so we, along with the board, we addressed it. And in the middle of the school year, not only did we wait till the following school year, we cut $1.8 million. So collectively between that 1.8 million in the middle of the school year and the three million this school year we have cut our budget by over ten percent that is that is when i tell people around the state they're like that's a huge cut and and that's because every single person in our district got to work on this we got committed to this and we got serious about it we we set up a established a budget committee That budget committee had community members, it had employees, it had parents. We had every stakeholder group represented and that budget committee started getting to work and these were our priorities. Make the lowest impact possible on classroom instruction with any cuts that we made. make sure we're student-centered in our budgeting priorities maintain as many programs as possible we're thinking about cte we're thinking about arts our electives our class offerings we we wanted to try to to keep from cutting any of those programs if possible and then maintaining the the step increases for our staff was another priority that was established at the end of that process that was a four month process this represents all of the the budget cuts that the committee brought before the board and you can see of the over three million the largest chunk of that was over one million at central office we felt like if we were asking if we were looking at how can we save money we're going to start at the district level we're going to start at central office and so the largest cuts have been at our central office and those have been over one million and then another 1.6 in other operational efficiencies and then the last cut was that the budget committee recommended work was at the school level We didn't end up, the board did not end up having to make as many of those cuts at that time. And this is just the list of all of the things that we cut, reprioritized, you name it, to try to get the $1.8 million cut in the middle of the school year. And then we went, in order to really look at how can we save the most money and cut the most money at central office, I reorganized our central office. We reorganized around our vision and we reorganized to make the reduction that was needed. But you can see here, there's a very long list of positions that were either eliminated or just not filled at this time to be able to make those cuts. So you can see here, best practice really is in that fund balance at the end of the year when we have our savings account, we really need to be, best practice is at least 15%. And so you can see here that in 23, Our fund balance was $10,659,000 at the end of that fiscal year. And then you can see that FY24, 7.9, FY25, 5.5, and then FY26, that was the budget I came in under and we were uh projected to be here in the red so under 26 we would have been at that 1.8 million which is four percent but because of the cuts that we made in the middle of the school year i keep saying this because this is our staff this is everybody coming together to do this we were able to end the year with a seven percent fund balance and then our board um we've cut three million dollars now this school year and so again you can see there that in order for us to balance the budget we had to make those cuts significant cuts And we also had a one-time $700,000 transfer that we were able to transfer into the general fund from funds that are set aside for projects, building projects, facilities. We were able to transfer those in to be able to pay for, really it pays for our liability insurance this year, to be honest. That's about, it's not quite what our liability insurance is. wanted to share this with you just to show you kind of the trajectory that we were on but also kind of the work that we've done in the last year and the result of that we're going we're heading in the right direction now we did this is this is the rest of the timeline for the rest of the school year again cuts over 1 million we cut the extra 3.3 for this school year, so that's over 10% of our budget. We now are asking our board, we're asking our board and our community to consider holding the tax rate, not reducing it, not increasing it, but holding it because we have a vision and we have a direction that we wanna go as a school system and opportunities that we wanna provide for our students. And so my question really is, What will your legacy be? What will our legacy be as a community? And the question really is, are we going to stabilize our school system, continue to stabilize it, or defund it? So if we hold at the current tax rate of 63.3, that is the lowest since 2013. And that means, because that's not an increase in the tax rate, that means that 75% of the county would not see an increase. Only 25% could see an increase in their property taxes if their assessment, their property is worth more. And that would allow us to continue to stabilize our fund balance to get back up to where we need to be and to begin to create a foundation for what we want to do as a school system and a community. So what that would mean for a house that's $355,000, which is the average in Woodford County, with a 7.7% reassessment increase. That means if they got reassessed, it went up the average 7.7%. That would have been an increase of $31,126. So the value of that house would have gone up to $386,000. And the difference between the hold for the hive rate at 63.3 and then what the 4% rate would be is .8 cents. And that equates to about $2.49 per year or 21 cents per month. So I'm going to ask Dr. Gribbons to talk a little bit more just about the specifics of this, of kind of what we're asking and wanting our community to consider for our school system.

Thank you, Dr. Jones. So what we've kind of seen, I think everybody's seen over the last five to 10 years, especially in Woodford County, is the assessment values has actually risen quite rapidly over really the last four years. And so what that does to our school system is that the state funding decreases. So anytime that the assessment values in the county goes up, especially last year was 12%. The year before that was like 9%. This year it went up about 8%. The state will look at it and say, well, Woodford County's tax base is such large that you can fund your own public school system. And so through the SEEK formula, which is what the state funding does for our schools, it does what it's supposed to do. It looks at other counties like eastern Kentucky who doesn't have a tax base and that those state funds go to those counties versus Woodford County. So what we've seen here in this graphic representation is the green arrow really represents the assessment values. They've exponentially increased year over year really rapidly the last three years. At the same time, state funding has gone down rapidly. We also know inflation. I have a family of five. I'm sure each of you have different sized families. But when you go to the grocery, when you fill your gas tank up, when you look at your insurance bill, your property bill, all of those things cost more today than they did last year and the year before that. So think about your family. Now think about the public school's family of 4,000 and how that exponentially increases our costs. And so over the last couple of years, the funding per pupil has shifted to local funding. About 80% of our per pupil funding comes from the local community. Only 20% comes from the state. And that's a big shift. So if you were to go back five or 10 years ago, it was about 50-50, could have went other side, depends on what year you look at, but it's shifted. So now it comes. What what does the community want their public schools to look like? This is a map of the state, and this is and before I talk about it, like all of these presentations are on the transparencies page of our financial transparencies page at the school. You will notice that there are different versions because Dr. Jones had mentioned like we started in January. This is the projections. Then we were in May and this is the new projections. Well, we got the final numbers last night, which changed everything that we've been talking about today. But these are all you'll see their source at the bottom. So you can go to the Department of Education. So what this is, is the per pupil amount that the state funds by county. Now, the lower or the lighter the color means the least amount funded. So the darker the color, the more it's probably hard to see. Depends on where you're sitting at. But Woodford County gets two thousand six hundred and sixty two dollars per student. we are we currently in the bottom five percent of the state for receiving state funding so that means we are a bottom tier county for receiving state funds and the reason it is is because the state looks at the assessment base of woodford county and then they look at the number of students in the county and they and they do their little formula and they say based on that amount you don't need state funding because it should be locally funded There's a couple of, over the last few months, you know, we've had different community events. I've talked to different people and they always say, well, if you adopt the 4% rate as by law in KRS, which is non-recallable, that generates 4% more revenue. So you should be fine. Well, I want to show you here how a 4% rate does not actually increase the revenue by 4%. So looking at last year, Dr. Jones covered kind of the timeline. The board adopted a 4% tax rate. So over that time period last year, that 4% rate generated $741,000 more in general fund revenue. But the state looked at it and said, hey, your assessments went up so far that we're going to take back $163,000 of that. So when you net that out, the school system netted $577,000 more revenue last year than the year before that. So that's a one point five nine percent increase. So one point six increase in actual revenue. So the four percent rate only produced one point six percent in new revenue. If you look at our insurance our fuel gas buses if you look at all of those things all the fixed costs like we all have fixed costs you have to have electricity you have to have water you have to have sewer trash all of those things are fixed costs rose eight point four percent last year. So one point six percent increase our fixed cost rose by eight point four percent. Depending on what indicator whether you like consumer price index me I like personal consumption index consumer price index is a set number of commodities the government says we'll look at these and we'll see how much the price increase and we'll set the rate. The consumption is what do we all buy because we know we buy more things than in that actual category. So during that same time period, you're looking at somewhere between eight and nine percent. And so just thinking about eight and nine percent inflation, one point six percent increase, we're going the wrong way. And this is where we're looking at it. So over the last two years, the assessment values went up twenty three percent. So the assessment base over two years went up 23%. And that's great. You're like, well, then the school's funding should have went up at least 20%, right? During the same time period, our per-pupil funding went up 5.5%. And I talked about CPI or PCE. So 8.4% inflation or 9.2%, pick whichever one you like. Either way, we've decreased our per-pupil funding over the last two years by about 3% to 3.5%. So that means there's less money to spend on instruction, career pathways, buses, all of those things that we want to spend on. I like, I'm a visual person, so this is what I like to show. So during the same time period, you can see FY24, the funding per pupil, when you look at state funding, SEEK, as well as our local property tax, was $9,817 per student. If you just adjust that for inflation, I use the conservative number of 3%. So for this year, we would need $10,471 just to have the same funding that we had two years ago. And you can kind of follow that blue line out. So at the 4% rate, that's what it looks like. That dotted line, that's your inflation adjusted. So to have the same buying power two years ago with the same funding, that's what you would need. you can see the further out you go to the right the larger the gap between what the four percent rate does and what inflation from two years ago looks like now we are advocating for hope for the hive because you can see that yellow line sounds like god is also i think so But you can also see that yellow line. So holding for the hive would generate a little bit more per pupil funding, but it still is far from reaching that inflation gap. So we're still falling behind, but not as far as we would as we continue to hold that 4 percent rate. Going back to 2004, this is what the school tax rate was all the way back to 2004. So you can see that it it gradually rose all the way to about three years ago. And that's where the property value started going a little bonkers. And since as a school district, if you adopt the four percent rate and if the property assessments go above four percent, then that rate will always go down. So you can see when the property assessment started kind of going up because that will always drop the rate. So what we're advocating for, you can see last year, the rate was 63.3 cents per hundred of assessed value. And so we're advocating that just like we are, we know families are facing inflationary pleasures. They have increased this cost, so we don't want to raise taxes. And so we're just advocating to say, let's just maintain that same tax rate. We're not, we don't want to raise taxes, but we would like to maintain that tax rate because it does provide a little bit of extra per pupil funding for the school. Uh, but it still doesn't keep up with inflation. Like the map previously, this one actually shows tax rates. So this is all the tax rates in the state school tax rates, I should say. And you can kind of see they're listed are our neighbors. Again, the same legend applies. The lighter the color, the lower the rate. So if you remember from the seek one, I said we were a bottom funded state seek funded county. That means we are the bottom 5% of per pupil state funded. On the school tax rate, we're about the 54%, 52% mark. So we're at the very bottom from state funded, but we're in the middle of the local funding. If you think about a seesaw, you kind of have to try to balance that a little bit. While we don't want to raise taxes, we still need to figure out how to continue to support our legacy of excellence and future of opportunities. And unlike some of those, so some of our neighbors also have other taxes. Our only source of revenue is our property tax and our state funding. Some of the other counties around them also have occupational taxes and other taxes that help them have multiple streams of revenue outside of their property tax. Here in Woodford County, we only have the two property tax and state funding. So on the right is the actual PVA quadrant map, and on the left is just kind of a representation. So you can see the four quadrants, green, yellow, clear, and a little bit of the pinkish. So at maintaining the current rate of 63.3 cents, that means three of the four quadrants will pay exactly the same thing that they did last year. The one quadrant that got reassessed this year, they would only pay more if their property was reassessed at a higher value and they would only pay more because the value went up, not because the school taxes went down or up. So by maintaining that same tax rate, three of the four quadrants are stable. There's no increases to their property tax from the school and just the one if their property tax went up. And then before we get to this one, if you remember, Dr. Jones, We have cut $5 million off the school budget in the last year, from half the year last year, $3 million this year. So with $5 million cut, that's eliminated some programs, reorganizations. The current budget that was passed with the current one-time transfer is a balanced budget, but that means no new anything. That means the current budget is operating with $5 million worth of cuts, no new programs, no expanded CTE, no new anything. desperately want to hold for the hop to provide some of those opportunities. We're looking at our school buses. The state recommends that we replace two a year. We have not replaced any in two years. Currently, a school bus runs about one hundred and eighty thousand dollars each. And starting next year, they will be over two hundred thousand dollars apiece. So that one that just by holding the the rate would fund partially one bus and help us the main programs. what we want to do is expand programs and opportunities for our students we want to provide you know career pathways we want to provide trade school opportunities so that one they can either learn what they like or what they don't like we want to expand those opportunities and currently with the current budget with the current state funding and the local funding we are not able to expand anything we're exploring all options partnerships everything is on the table to try to provide those opportunities for our students but we know that it really comes down to the community because we are 80 percent funded by the local community. So we desperately need your support to continue and those programs for the future students because they're going to be sitting in our seats. They'll be sitting around this fiscal court at some point in the near future. We want to make sure that we provide all those opportunities and training for those individuals. because they are the next generation of leaders. They'll be the ones that will come into your house to fix your air conditioning, your plumbing, your electrician. And so we would much rather train our local Woodford County students to be in your home than having to outsource to another community to have those come in. So providing those opportunities for our students are vital. And so I'll turn it back over to Dr. Jones.

so our four pillars just to close our four pillars successful engaged students and and dr ribbons talked about this but we want to and our students are asking our communities asking for additional career pathways for our students we want to we value our robust arts and athletic programs and then skilled and committed teams is our second pillar um we if you compare our teacher salaries and our classified salaries we are now um and we were right above anderson county and anderson county just gave a four percent raise so now we are at the bottom of all the counties around us in teacher pay and in classified pay. Just to give you just perspective as to where we are. And then our other pillars are caregivers and community partnerships. I'm committed to transparency as your superintendent because for no other reason than I need you. We need you as our school system needs you. And you fund us. You are the ones that support us. And so it's really important to me that I'm transparent with you and I'm honest with you about where we are, where we're headed and what our needs are. We've launched our alumni association, so look out for that if you're a Woodford County alumni. We'd love to have you join. And then again, we've talked about our stewardship. So thank you so much for the opportunity to be here tonight.

Thank you, Dr. Jones. Does anybody have any questions for our superintendent? Well, we really appreciate you all being there, updating the community and the court. We'll have some tax rate discussions as we proceed through this meeting. We can also make sure to have that include the discussion of the school. But we wish you guys a great school year. Thanks for all you're doing. Keep up the great work. Take a brief recess to let folks head on out.

Alrighty.

Listen, there's a lot going on in the world, a lot going on outside, a lot going on in here. But I'll tell you what's exciting. So Woodford County Rodeo is coming to town. I'd like to recognize Farm Bureau President, Mr. Jeremy Dotson, who has waited patiently. You've run all the crowd off, though.

We need those people at the rodeo, too.

I just wanted to say thank you all again.

Ever since we've started this, we got to figuring this morning, we're somewhere around $200,000 is what we're able to give back into the community. in the past four years so it's really helped in scholarships and and daryl tell you we we gave to several organizations we um invest in youth auction every bit of the money goes back out we don't we don't try to keep a dollar of it we we've actually got a separate account we put it in instead of our account so we make sure we give it all away but sometimes it's hard to give away money you'd be surprised but I'd like to give y'all some free tickets.

Rick has been amazing helping

Put this on, it's getting easier every year, I think. Or I'm just not showing up as much. I don't know if I have enough ticket space. Thanks.

But we'd like everybody to be drinking in the ticket community.

We'd like to thank everybody again for helping us put this on. The road department, the jail, everybody. The guys out there are amazing. and what they can do and how quick they come to help you when you need them. But I hope everybody shows up Friday and Saturday. Gates open at six, like always. And we finally got the homemade ice cream machine working. So everybody get ready for homemade ice cream this year. That's exciting.

Thank you, Jeremy. Thank you, sir. Again, I think everybody, for their patience this evening, we did have several items on the agenda. I do want to invite the United Way of the Bluegrass to come and talk about the Waypoint. Michelle Jimenez is a Woodford County Inn and has been helping serve folks through the United Way, and I will... I will go ahead and lead out that they are going to ask for an additional $3,400 to continue the pilot program for their staffing for the waypoint. So Michelle, if you would just kind of tell folks what's going on.

Absolutely. Thank you, Your Honor, members of the court. So before I start with my ask for more money, I want to just make sure that everyone knows what United Way of the Bluegrass is. and how we have been in the community for several years now. So, for example, last year with our Lace Up for Learning, where we provide shoes for children within four schools in Woodford County, we served 37 students through requests for those. We serve 90 children, providing them with books. So that is with our reading across the bluegrass program. So 90 students were served there. And then something that's very near and dear to my heart, anyone who knows someone who might be with the Women's United Group, We serve 57 children with pajamas. So when the school is at the end of the year, the winter season, and they tend to have their holiday parties, they have their pajamas. We want children having that confidence and being able to come into school with those brand new items. we've been existing in that manner but we've also given tens of thousands to the non-profits in the area so one of our funding partners are mentors of mills the women's club who provide shoes every year for children within wilford county schools and many other so we're kind of known as community chest And then now we did about four months ago, we launched a pilot with the Woodford County Health Department. We're not supposed to name it, but we did name it the Woodford County Waypoint at the Woodford County Health Department. So it has a long name. But what we wanted to come and see was the question. If you look at just statistical information, Woodford County is one of the top wealthiest. we all that live in the community know that that is not always the representation of our individuals so in that we wanted to look and see was there a need after this four months we have determined that there is a need one of those biggest needs that we see are transportation so it has not been officially announced yet through a media release But Woodford County has just been awarded $17,500 in transportation. So this will be lift. It will be transported through me, the coordinated. It does not matter what your income is. It does not matter as long as you're 18 and over or if you're with a parent for any need. Work. employment, going to the doctor and work and employment, the same thing, the training, any of those things, whatever it is. If you want to go visit grandma, social connections are very important. You are also allowed to to utilize it for that. So information will be coming. Watch the Woodford Sun, the health department and UWBG dot org. We'll have more information that launches October the first. So we're really excited. But the other thing that I noticed while running this pilot, which has been one day a week for the last four months, is that 90% of our needs have been housing access. Relocating, you've been evicted, you lost a job. So there's just been a different struggles. And I want to quote this accurately. 5%, which I really thought would be much higher, was just allocating monies for rent and utilities. Domestic violence was 2% of our needs. And when we look at these numbers, the others are 2% and other, and then 1% in people needing health insurance. This is a pilot of 20 people. So when we start taking 2% of 20, that looks a whole lot different. Or if we look at 5%, and definitely when we look at that 90%. So as one individual agency, we can't do a lot about that. I do know some landlords that are in Weber County who have been fantastic. So we've been able to navigate that. So what we're asking for the $3,400 is is to continue this pilot for another two months to allow time for all the entities that are making trying to make this a permanent option to continue exploring the needs and to have that staff member here once which is every monday 10 to 4 if you need to send anybody doesn't again matter what their income is and we accept everyone so that would just cover staff we are bringing in more of our fayette county partners that would be bringing funds in for the court members i do have breakdowns that you can look at on average right now we are spending 43.75 per client that we have seen so 43.75 over 16 weeks It's pretty, pretty average. Fayette County, we look at around $85. So that's what we're asking. I can give my cards to anyone who's interested in more information. But just to let you know, the broad services that we cover is tax preparation, We offer that for free. Workforce resources and training, budgeting, credit support, bank on resources, and then financial empowerment sources. We go way beyond that, but financial empowerment is our goal, moving people from surviving to thriving.

Thank you, Michelle. Let me ask, does any member of the court have any questions for Michelle about the waypoints? I would just remind the court that as part of the affordable housing plan and the emergency needs that we budgeted, that we do have funds in our budget to support this allocation, as well as the allocation requested from the Woodford County Community Household Pantry as well. is there a motion to approve the requested allocation to the united way for the united waypoint uh staffing for the pilot program motion motion by squire taylor second by squire carl are there any questions or comments there on seeing none all those in favor please vote and signify by saying aye aye all those opposed nay and that motion carries unanimously i want to thank our public health director cassie prather for The work that they're doing and serving needs and housing the waypoint and working on all the things impacting our community every day. And all the great work they do at our health department. Director Prather, thank you.

And Judge, if I can just add, we just made a donation of 100,000 pounds of toys. for the health initiatives through the health department. I can't speak, sorry. We've also just recently donated a 70 inch TV to the jail for educational and church purposes. And then outside of that, we have approximately 250 hygiene kits that will be going to the risk officers to be distributed through Whippoorw County. and then approximately 1,000 hygiene for our bless boxes. So if you need anyone that, if you need any for your particular things, just let us know so we can get those properly distributed.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Director Prather, please.

I would like to give the court an update. Our substance use disorder support specialist is on our final round of interviews. We hope to complete those on Thursday. And so hopefully we can make an announcement about that higher and get them in to the health department working with Waypoint, revitalized counseling, and all our other programs. So thank you all very much for always supporting us.

Thank you, Director Prather. Thanks for moving that initiative forward. We appreciate it. We do have Megan Hoover and Robin Espinoza back for the community household pantry and we have moved to amend the adopted resolution 2026-5 for the Woodford County Fiscal Court regarding emergency needs assistance. And that would be to amend that to include the household pantry as a recipient in the amount of $5,000. And seeing as they have waited patiently here, I would entertain a motion to approve said allocation and amendment of resolution. Motion by Squire Varner, second by Squire Blackford. And I'll open up the floor for any discussions or questions thereon. seeing none all those in favor please vote and signify by saying aye aye all those opposed nay that motion carries unanimously thank you all thank you thank you we also have with us the chief of the vercelles police department mr rob young is with us and chief did you have an update for us this evening i wasn't sure if you wanted me to do that uh

What I have is our annual report. Yes. So I just wanted to present to the magistrates and yourself. Sorry, I can distribute these.

Please do. Please do.

Yeah, thank you. That's our annual report based on last year's activities. And I just wanted to come in and provide that to all. apologize I'm not going to start over because I don't I think everyone heard me here I don't think you want to hear all that again but in 2026 we had 931 collisions on our roadways 171 people injured and six people killed that's why we're spending so much time focusing our attention on traffic enforcement I've heard a couple complaints that were brought to my attention about Uh, you know, we're doing it to generate revenues for the city, the county, and that couldn't be further from the truth. Hopefully the public that's listening know that we're not getting revenues from that. That is not a revenue stream for us. It's done with public safety in mind. We're making some headway on some cold case activity. uh we we hired a cold case detective i talked about it last year and our major cold cases are being re-examined and at some point i'd like to have some good news to report but at this time we're going through a detailed overhaul of all those cases in an effort to try to bring closure to those families on the good news the overdose rate continues to decline I go back to one of the worst years that I could find on record, 2021. We had 2,200 statewide overdoses. And in Wooper County, 15. And last year, which is the last year that we have those statistics available, that rate went down from 2,200 statewide to 1,100. And it was cut in half, more than half, 700 in Woodford County. That's still a lot, but it's going in the right direction. That's really promising. Probably a lot has to do with Cassie Prather and some of her efforts. That's great. But please go through the report. I'm available. I've spoken to a lot of you on the phone. I'm always available for you to answer any questions. It's a lot of information in the annual report. I even addressed the current situation having to do with flock cameras. I'm sure the magistrates are fielding quite a bit of questions about flock. I don't want to make this the flock presentation, but I certainly could answer any questions you may have. The one thing I'll say, if you could pass that along to your constituents, Flock cameras are such a valuable and important tool for our efforts. If you remember, I think the Woodford Sun just reported about two armed robberies that we had July 15th, July 26th. The break in that case came because of flock cameras. We had a bank robbery. We ended up finding that individual because of flock cameras. Go down to Berea, the murderer, the tellers in the bank in Berea. Block cameras help facilitate that arrest. I go back to not just solving crimes, but also endangered individuals. When we first got the system, Block cameras were responsible for us being able to recover two endangered juveniles that had come up missing, and we were able to find them. We recovered and reunited a juvenile out of Georgia because of the flock cameras. We'll continue our work regardless if we have flock cameras. But what you'd be doing is taking away a valuable tool. There are systems in place. I'm always willing to sit down. I've had a lot of questions. And I'll sit down with members of our community to discuss it at length. I sat down the other day over two hours. Somebody had a lot of questions. I'm more than happy to talk about that. I just ask that we help spread the truth about it and not the mistruths. Because there's a lot of misinformation being spread about them. And I'm afraid some people are buying into that rhetoric. And what that is doing is the bidding of bad actors. I've had zero complaints of misuse of our block cameras. But I've had a large number of success stories because of them. It's valuable, and I hope it doesn't go away. I addressed some of the misinformation in the annual report, so I encourage you to go to that section, pass it along to your people. There are controls. There are consequences for misuse of the system.

Judge, may I ask you, it is in your handout. Could you, for the public, explain what it doesn't do, those misperceptions that are out there?

I've heard a large number of misinformation or misstatement of facts. I've heard people say that flock cameras will take pictures of people tied into AI. It's being sold for marketing. It's downloading your telephones. As you drive by, these cameras take a picture of the rear of the vehicles. Anything that's readily seeable by the human eye on public roadways. It doesn't go into private areas. It's not sold. We control that information and who sees it. We only share our flock camera data with law enforcement agencies in Kentucky. No federal agencies. I know there's a big concern that it's being used for immigration enforcement. It's not. There is no backdoor into our system. We own that. That information, if it's not used or downloaded for a specific purpose, it disappears in 30 days, never to be seen. If an officer or anyone else within the department searches that system, they have unique access, login, And it's tracked. It's logged. It's auditable. Under the new KRS that just passed July 15, we have to go in and we have to do mandatory audits of our system at least every 90 days. So if an officer goes in there and runs a tag, they have to put a reason. And I can see that. We can go back and see every search or query of the system that's done. So if somebody were to misuse the system, there's real consequences to those actions. So...

But it basically is a license plate reading device, correct?

That's all it is. You can't even see who's operating the vehicle. It takes a picture of the back of the car. You don't see who's operating that vehicle. So it's... It's not as people are leading some folks to believe that it's doing all these other things and being sold. I've heard that, that it's being sold to businesses like Kroger so they can market that data. To know how many times that it's tying into your telephones, it is none of those things.

And I would point out, and Chief can back me up on this, law allows, for example, your officers, if they're on the highway, get behind a vehicle, they can run the plate. Absolutely. So all it's doing is what police officers can already do. Is that correct?

That is 100% correct, yes. So if anyone has any questions, I'd love to answer them because I would hate for that tool to go away. And again, we'll still do our job, but I don't want to be the one to explain to a parent. I go back to the parents that lost those children. I don't want to be the one to explain to that parent why we no longer have that tool. It's my job as the chief to try to use the best technology I can in service to the community. And that's to protect our community, not just to investigate crimes. We're not tracking, it's not mass surveillance. It's done in service to the community. I don't want to be the one to explain to that parent we no longer have that system in place. So I'd be happy to answer any questions about the report, whether it be now, because I know it is a lot in there, or you can call me up. Most of you have my cell phone. I would encourage you to call me. We did have bad news today on the block cameras. We had two cameras vandalized in our county today. So that was most unpleasant to learn. But the good news is we got it up and running very quickly because they're not very good vandals, and that's good for us.

Well, Chief Young, let me say thank you. Does any members of the court have any questions for the chief? Thank you. Thank you for the annual report. Chief Young, I just want to say we also have our sheriff, Johnny Wilhite, with us. We have deputies Fugate and Clark. We have Lieutenants McGee and Costigan with us. You all represent today here Woodford County's law enforcement community, and we do have the best in Kentucky. And I know that I speak for the fiscal court when I say that we support you, and we appreciate all the support you give to our community.

One of the things I mentioned in the letter, we do feel supported in We have a great community to work in. We have the support of all of our governmental leaders and our community. It's refreshing. I've worked in a lot of different areas of the country and it's not always like that. It is a partnership.

Judge, as I look around, The reason I'm not concerned about the problems with flock cameras like you've read in those isolated incidents in other counties is I see who we've had as our chiefs. I see former Chief Wilhoyt. I see former Chief Fugate. I see current Chief young and I see our lieutenants Costigan and McGee out there. We have good trustworthy people who have proven over time how responsible they are manning these positions and we are very fortunate in that regard. Thank all of you for your service throughout the years to local law enforcement.

Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you for all your support to all the magistrates and judge. So thank you. We have a good bunch here and Thank you.

You're welcome. Thank you. We do have a few other reports I want to get to as well. Let's see. I know Durbin, you're here from the Jack Jewett House. Do you have anything? Well, it's America 250, Jack Jewett House.

Whatever you want to know, I'm open to any questions.

Tell folks about Frontier Days coming up and some of the activities at the house.

Yeah, absolutely. September 24th and 25th, we'll have an estimated 365 Woodford County fifth graders down at the Jack Jewett site over a two-day period. We've got about seven volunteers, reenactors lined up to demonstrate different activities. our frontier living styles and we'll take the kids through the house as well. We have several different groups coming by for tours throughout August and into September as well.

Thank you, Durbin. Anybody have any questions for Durbin? Seeing none, we appreciate all you're doing. Thank you. Let's see, Madam Treasurer, your report please.

Tonight's balance is $10,868,187.84. Thank you. Anybody have any questions for the treasurer?

Seeing none, keep up the great work. Thank you.

Director Wade, do you have anything for the court?

No, sir.

How about the road department?

No, sir.

Thank you. Thank you. Let's see, Madam Clerk, Madam County Clerk. Yes. Solid waste and recycling. I know you're here on the dumpsters issue. Do you want to go ahead and make that report for us? Either that or wait. Let's bring it on up. Bring it on up.

We met with Drew on those county dumpsters.

Yes, sir.

And along with Scott with the road department. And we've come up with a plan to see if it's doable to do away with those dumpsters out in the county to keep some of the illegal dumping from going on that's happening out there. We're getting a lot of household debris and shingles and just stuff that's not flood related that's being dumped out there. And we think it'd be a lot better if we could get those dumpsters gone. and just have residents, if they have a flooded property, come out to the recycling center. We can still waive the fees and we can track what's being brought out there. We can still do it the way we did when the flood was fresh and have dumpsters set up just for that. That way we can see what's coming out. It would just take a few extra steps on the citizens parts. They would have to show ID or proof of residency that it is from a flooded property.

or a contractor from that. Thank you for that update. If there are no objections, then we will proceed in that manner. Thank you all. Anything else from solid waste recycling? No, thank you, thank you. Other members of any agency or department have any reports for the court. Don't want to miss anybody. Seeing none. That's a long reports. We do have the sheriff's audit. You all have received that today. If you're prepared, we'll accept the sheriff's audit into the record as presented. Is there a motion for saying? Motion by Squire Carl, second by Squire Brown. All those in favor, please vote and signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, nay. Thank you, Sheriff Wilhoite. Great job on the audit. Um, I'll move to the general orders in the unfinished business board appointments. I do have a board appointment for the Woodford County Fire Protection District Board. I am recommending to the fiscal court to appoint Jamie Littleton Bland for three year term to the Woodford County Fire Protection District Board. Is there a motion for same motion by Squire Gentry, second by Squire Downey. I'd open up the floor for any questions or discussion there on.

I don't have anything against Ms. Bland, but the most qualified person on the fire board submitted his paperwork to re-up and he's being essentially removed. He had 40 plus years with the fire board.

I would just stop you for one moment.

I know that's your choice, Judge, but I want that to be said and to say that's why I have to vote no. Nothing personal, but I have to vote no.

No, nothing personal at all. I would just say that that includes a member of Squire Varner's family, and so for a discussion thereon, we'd have to recuse from there, but if you are good to proceed, we'll continue. OK, I will just say that. I had the opportunity to meet with Mr. Barner about the. Woodford County Fire Protection District. And square point I would ask at this time if you would recuse so I can discuss those conversations. Please Sir. HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO MEET WITH MR. VARNER AND DISCUSS THE WOODFORD COUNTY FIRE PROTECTION DISTRICT'S BUDGET AND THEIR TAX RATE. AND IN THAT DISCUSSION I ASK THE CHAIR, MR. VARNER, ABOUT ISSUES WITH THE CURRENT TAX RATE, WHICH IS ON THE AGENDA FOR LATER IN THIS MEETING. And you all received and heard the report from the schools and we're hearing from people every day in the community that the tax burden is growing and it's too high. And so I requested that they look at using the compensated rate and keeping their revenues the same in this fiscal year in order to support those in the community that are being assessed higher values on their home. They're dealing with inflation and the rising cost of everything. And I asked that the fire board look at adopting the compensating rate again, not taking any less revenue, but not taking any more revenue and not raising taxes on anyone. And so in that discussion, We weren't able to come to a consensus on that. And so I have recommended Ms. Bland, Jamie Littleton Bland, to serve as one of the first women to ever serve on that board. And I believe she will look at the tax rate and the budgeting at the fire district in a way that represents the fiscal court and the community as requested as an appointment from this fiscal court. So I just want to explain that. It is nothing personal to the point that was made about Mr. Varner. It was simply about the tax rate. That being said.

I just want to make it known that the fiscal court doesn't know anything about fighting fires. The fire district is independent of the fiscal court. They voted on their tax rate. They had a public hearing. There were no comments, no public comments at all. They held their tax rate the same. We merely accept it into the record. I see this as strong-arming the fire board to do the bidding of this court. And I think people should know that the fire district is the only taxing district that actually can save people money because its insurance rates are directly related to ISO rates because of their presence. In Woodford County, number one, we have six fire stations in Woodford County, and they've also bought a new tanker and a new engine that they basically had to get to fight those distillery fires down there, but for big fires. And all of that improves the ISO rating for the county, which there in turn decreases your insurance rates. So I don't appreciate the strong-arming. I've got nothing against Ms. Bland, but I'm going to have to vote no because I just think this is wrong.

Thank you, Squire Gill. I would note that the ISO rating for Woodford County has gone up. It has not gone down. It has not lowered folks' insurance rating. It has increased. And yes, absolutely, I think that the Woodford County Fire Protection District has great firefighters. I think they're doing a great job. But the rate has gone up and not down. And I would just say that The fire district has presented appointments to this fiscal court each and every time and that we've taken those. We've taken those appointments. We've accepted them normally without any issue or condition. This time is different. The tax situation in the community is one that people are concerned about. And I just ask that the taxing districts work with each the other taxing districts to try to bring the rate down so hopefully we can try to lower taxes. We are about to lower taxes as a fiscal court in a significant way here in a moment. And we just ask for folks to do that. And I have absolutely no reservation or hesitation that the other members of the Woodford County Fire Protection Board decided not to take that action and to have the compensating rate. But as a fiscal court, we need people that will do what not we're strong-arming them into doing, but what they believe is best for the community and not just the fire district, that they would represent both our interest as a community and the fire district. And so I believe that Ms. Littleton-Bland will do a great job in doing that, and that's why she has my recommendation to this fiscal court for her appointment. Other questions or comments? Squire Gill, you're recognized.

Thank you. The fire board does everything for the community. The ISO ratings are every five years. It hasn't been done since 2021, and since that time, they've added the tanker, and the new engine, and they have a new fire station, and they believe it will bring the ISO rating down. But to say that they don't do things for the community is just... is just wrong they work with a very frugal budget they're not free spenders they don't have the income sources that the fiscal court does nor do they have the budget that the fiscal court does and i just think it's it's offensive that this fiscal court interjects itself into what they look at every day and it's them who has to fight the fires it's not us and we are out of our wheelhouse on this

other questions or comments according to statute our wheelhouse is to make an appointment appointment at the recommendation that i have made for miss jamie littleton bland i'm proud to recommend her appointment and i would entertain a motion thereon

Judge, may I say something? I've been here 24 years. I've been here three judges. Gormley, I want you to know, one of the judges tried to do what you're doing now. We was in a meeting and the fire department is their own taxing district. They have to By being able to fight terrorists, they've got to be able to have their own money to do it. I was told in that meeting that the judge was told that he does not have right, the strong arm or whatever the word you want to use, to get into that. and it was told because their own tax industry and this is the first time in three judges in 24 years i've seen this which i'm not saying that's wrong i'm not saying that's right but it's just never been done before so that i know of so that's all i can say about it thank you squire brown i would just say that um there was a recommendation uh

for this court from the fire district for an appointment that we did not make that appointment. We appointed former magistrate C.L. Watts. He was not their recommendation. They recommended someone else, and we appointed C.L. Watts. And this was not treated that way. It was not called straw mart. It was unanimously voted. I really think that all we are trying to do with this appointment is to make sure, not that the fire department doesn't do anything for the community, but that the appointment of the fiscal court takes into consideration the fiscal court's position on taxes. And when the fire district made the decision to increase the tax rate from six to seven, this court voted it down. We believed, we disagreed, that that rate needed to increase by that level it has been at that level for two years now the assessments have gone up considerably we're only asking that they continue on at the current level of revenues that they were operating under under which is reflected in their budget that we received and accepted and so mr varner during that discussion said that they were not willing to do that and so I've entertained another appointment and allowed him to stay on as a holdover for the opportunity to do that. To my knowledge, Squire Brown, that's never happened under any other judge executive, to allow the individual to stay on and be a holdover replacement, which means I'm not strong-arming them. I let them have their appointment continue on. And at this point in time, they have voted on their tax rate, which we will take up momentarily. And I think that we have an excellent appointment for that board representing one of the first women to ever serve on that board. And there is a motion and a second on the table. Squire Gill, you're recognized.

Thank you. We don't approve their tax rate. We just accept it into the budget. And I recall last year when this was brought up and we tried to tell them that we weren't going to approve that tax rate. We were told that we had no right to do that. And so we let it go and we pass the tax rate as they as they. So to say that we tried to lower it last year in here, we're not allowed to do that. That's that's not that's not our place. And I would like to say if we're voting on Miss Bland, Squire Varner needs to be in here because we're not voting on. Yes.

I would just make one brief clarification is that they did not increase their tax rate last year. That was two years ago. Yes. And this body has the right to weigh in on any tax rate in the community at any time. And while we don't have the ability to override the fire district due to the statutes, we did express to them that we didn't want to see their tax rate go up by that much. And they disagreed and moved forward. And that's their right to do that. So Squire Varner could return. Let the record reflect. Squire Varner has returned from his recusal of the discussion. The motion for the board appointment for Ms. Jamie Littleton-Bland is before this court. All those in favor, please vote and signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, nay. Nay. And the motion carries. We'll move on to the claims. The bills to be paid are before you. Are there any questions or comments on any of the bills to be paid? Seeing none. Are there any objections to any of the bills to be paid? Also seeing none, I'll approve the bills to be paid without objection. We do need to approve the claims of Stun Cuff in the amount of $7.75 and Galls Inc. in the amount of $1,071.99. That's using Sheriff's Office asset forfeiture funds. Motion to inquire Carl.

Second.

Second to inquire Downey. All those in favor please vote and signify by saying aye.

Aye.

All those opposed nay. That motion carries. We also need to approve the transfers as presented. Motion. There's a motion by Squire Gentry. Second. Second by Squire Downey. All those in favor please vote and signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed nay. The motion carries. We also need to approve the personnel order. Is there a motion for saying? Motion was required. Carl, second was required. Gentry, are there any questions or comments thereon? Seeing none, all those in favor, please vote and signify by saying aye.

Aye.

All those opposed, nay. That motion carries unanimously. Now we move on to the proposed second reading of Ordinance 2026-7, the tax rate for 2026. I need a motion to approve the second reading of Ordinance 2026-7 for General Taxation, setting the Woodford County fiscal year rate as recommended by the Ordinance Committee. Motion. Second. I would just reiterate that the fiscal court adopted in our budget and subsequently had the first reading of moving our tax rate from 5.9% 3.9 in the current fiscal year that is a significant substantial rate returning taxpayers dollars to our taxpayers the school district has asked to keep their rate the same which means that one quadrant of our community will see a tax increase but with woodford county fiscal court's rate dropping If other taxing districts take the compensating rate or less, we can lower taxes in this community. And this is our best effort to try to do that. That being said, are there any questions or comments on the second reading of the tax rate? Seeing none, all those in favor, please vote and signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, nay. That motion carries unanimously. Mr. County Attorney.

Judge, since there's been so much tax talk, I will say from a viewpoint in this corner, this is an historically high reduction in terms of the amount that has been dropped by and a historically low tax rate so this would be the second final reading of this ordinance of general taxation for the year 2026 in woodford county kentucky and for that by the way i commend the fiscal court for your administering of your finances over the years and thus your ability to do this The total assessment of all real property, including new property subject to ad valorem taxation within Woodford County as of January 1, 2026, is $3,818,146,631. Whereas the value of real estate for public service companies in the county is $23,977,583. Whereas the tax rate of 3.90 is proposed for 2026. and would generate county revenue of $1,489,077.19 and would not require a public hearing nor be subject to a recall vote, whereas at your last regular meeting you did move to adopt this rate for $100 of assessed value of both real and personal property, so be it ordained by this fiscal court that there is hereby levied and imposed an ad valorem tax of 3.90 cents per $100 of assessed value of both real and personal property located in Woodford County, Kentucky and subject to general taxation and that is otherwise dictated by adoption of this tax rate and is set and established by the Commonwealth of Kentucky Tax rates are also levied and imposed at the rate of cents per $100 of assessed value of property in Woodford County as follows. Bank deposit rate .025, motor vehicle 9.4, watercraft 9.4. This being a second reading, this ordinance is final, although it does need to be published in summary form within 30 days of today's date. Madam Clerk, we will take care of that, correct? Thank you, Judge.

Thank you, Mr. County Attorney. I know for the Woodford Sun, we've certainly buried the lead. We've taken up the tax rate last and the zoning tax amendment, one of the first of its kind in Kentucky about data centers. And we'll move on to that. We do need to have the first reading of 2026-8, the ordinance amending sections 712 through 720 of Article 7, Zoning District for Versailles Midway, Woodford County Zoning Ordinance, as recommended by the Ordinance Committee. Motion. There's a motion on the table. Second. Second by Squire Blackford. Yes, sir. There's a motion and a second. I want to say that... This has been what, if you look following the data center discussion around Kentucky, that Woodford County is leading the way in both farmland preservation and this text amendment, which is a data center prohibition. And we are working with our cities in lockstep to have unified zoning rules related to data centers. In addition to lowering the tax rate significantly I believe that Woodford County fully support these changes to the zoning Article 7. Are there any questions or comments thereon?

Judge, may I say something before the vote? Just came from a county attorney board strategic planning session and we try to come up with issues to go over with our general membership. uh i still say data i'm old school data centers is at the top of the list i was noticing on the news this morning that nicholasville just imposed a moratorium that's what most counties are doing looking at opposing a moratorium i will give our planning commission and our fiscal court credit we're way ahead of the rest of the state in terms of having an actual ordinance

ready for adoption but you'll continue to see if you watch the news all these other cities and counties wondering what do we do here we are about to have a first reading on an ordinance thank you mr county attorney any additional questions or comments seeing none all those in favor please vote and signify by saying aye aye all those opposed nay that motion too carries unanimously mr county attorney sir

Judge, what I will do in this summary reading of that ordinance is basically highlight some changes and additions to it. Again, I want to thank Director Hunter for having incorporating it into the entirety of these sections so that it makes sense for you to read it in the context of what already existed. So I would begin, if you have that in front of you, or even if not, for those who may, on page 2 under Professional Office P1712.3, there's Section E, incidental accessory retail uses such as prescription, filling barber and beauty shops, gift shops, flower shops, and snack bars conducted for the convenience of the employees, patrons, patients, visitors on the premises, provided that such establishments are clearly accessory and incidental to the primary use of the property, do not attract business from other than the site on which it was located. I would then go on to page, I believe it's 18, light industrial I-1. And you will notice at the top under 718.5, prohibited uses, we have three, landfill data center energy system, see special provision 719.7A, and battery energy storage system type 2, see special provision 718.7E. Then when you go on to page 20 on that, you will see at the top there that, and this is critical, Under subsection D, little d, landfills are not permitted in industrial district. Data centers energy system is not permitted in industrial districts. Battery energy storage systems type 2 are not permitted in industrial districts. The bottom of that page you see additional language about the battery energy storage systems have an aggregate energy capacity greater than 600 kilowatts or are comprised of more than one storage battery technology in a room or enclosed area. Then when you go over to page 21 at the top, you have all battery energy storage systems type 1 shall be located at least 1,000 feet from the property boundary of any adjoining parcel. All battery energy storage system type 1 shall be located at least 2,000 feet from any residential neighborhood, school, hospital, or nursing home. Then we have heavy industrial I-2. Steve, I've got to change that one to an I, so it's I-2. That carries over at 719.5 under prohibited uses. All uses other than those listed shall be prohibited. Additionally, the following industrial uses shall be prohibited in both the incorporated and uncorporated areas of Woodford County. Landfill data center energy systems, again, see special provision 719.7a. and the battery energy storage system type 2. Then you see under 19.7 special provisions the following definitions and standards apply to data energy systems and you have the four subsections lifted there. So those are the primary changes. This would be a first reading. We do need to advertise it for a second reading, which I trust then would occur at our September 8th fiscal court meeting.

Thank you, Mr. County Attorney.

Thank you, Judge.

Seeing no other unfinished business, we move to new business, the outside agency's tax rate. We did send to you the ag extension rate that was passed by their ag extension board today. I need a motion to accept that rate into the record for the tax rate for the tax year 2026. Motion. Motion by Squire Taylor. Second by Squire Carl. Are there any questions or comments thereon? Seeing none, all those in favor, please vote and signify by saying aye.

Aye.

All those opposed, nay. That motion carries. We also need to adopt the Woodford County Fire Protection District's tax rate into the record, except, did I say, okay, excuse me, except into the record the receipt of the Woodford County Fire Protection Tax Rate for 2026. Is there a motion? Motion by Squire Varner.

Second.

Second by Squire Gill. Are there any questions or comments thereon? Seeing none, all those in favor, please vote and signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, nay. That motion carries. Madam Clerk. We didn't take it all up. What else could there possibly be? Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else have anything additional? I'll move on to announcements. Squire Blackford.

Nothing.

Squire Brown. Squire Taylor. Nothing, Judge. Squire Jensen. No. Squire Varner. No. Squire Carl.

Nothing, Judge.

Thank you.

Squire Downey. School's starting back this week, so give yourself more time in the morning and be safe and watch out for school buses and all the kids. Wish a safe return to school for everyone this week.

Thanks. Thank you. Squire Downey. Mr. County Attorney, sir.

No, but thank you, Judge.

Mr. Woodford-Sun.

Just ditto what Mr. Bozar said earlier. We have also let everybody know we have now heard from the county or the designee of both the Woodford County Democrat and Republican Party. All the partisan candidates have accepted, so I can confirm that. The only thing I'll add is we're also still working on a date of the forum for the house, state house seat, the one school board seat, and the soil conservation seats. I said soil. Yeah, that's right.

Soil conservation district. Thank you, Mr. Woodford's son. Thank you all for your diligence. We've been at this a long time today.

I appreciate it.

We are adjourned.