By MICHAEL CRIMMINS
Glasgow News 1
During the Barren County Fiscal Court meeting Tuesday morning, the seven county magistrates unanimously voted to adopt the compensating tax rate.
Magistrate, and chairman of the county’s administration and budget committee, Marty Kinslow motioned that the 2025-26 county tax rate be set at 12.6 cents per $100 of assessed value, which is a drop from 2024’s 13 cents per $100 and 13.5 cents in 2023.
“[The committee’s] recommendation is that we go with the 12.6 per $100, which is lowering again,” Kinslow said. “[I’m] very happy we can continue the trend [of lowering the tax rate].”
He thanked several people for their work in “making the money go farther,” including the various county department heads and Barren County Judge-Executive Jamie Bewley Byrd and Deputy Judge-Executive Garland Gilliam for bringing in outside money. He also announced that the county finished the previous fiscal year with a roughly $2.5 million surplus, which factored into the court being able to take the lower rate.
“We continue to do more with less,” Kinslow said. “Even I am somewhat amazed that we continue to do this.”
The compensating is “the rate that when applied to the current year’s assessment would produce about the same amount of revenue as the preceding year,” according to the Kentucky League of Cities. The rate typically decreases as property values increase.
Due to the rate being lower than the allowed 4 percent increase this did not require a public hearing.
Byrd said she supported taking the compensating rate because of “how much Barren County has grown.”
