By MICHAEL CRIMMINS
Glasgow News 1
The Barren County Fiscal Court magistrates adopted and approved an ordinance setting the county’s 2025-26 budget and tax rates.
At their Aug. 19 court meeting, the magistrates had a first reading — by unanimous approval — of ordinance 696 and thereby took the compensating rate of 12.6 cents per $100 of assessed value, which is down from the 13 cents rate of the 2024-25 fiscal year. This rate does not include special taxing districts, such as the ambulance or library districts, state tax, or school tax rates, which have already been discussed during the Barren County, Glasgow Independent and Caverna Independent school boards of education meetings.
A compensating tax rate is the rate that “when applied to the current year’s assessment of real property, excluding new property, will produce an amount of revenue approximately equal as that produced last year from real property,” according to the Kentucky Department of Revenue.
“Therefore, as real property assessments rise, the tax rate is rolled back to keep the revenue generated from the existing real property assessments about the same,” the department stated.
The ordinance sets the 12.6 cents rate on real estate, a tax of 15.3 cents per $100 of assessed value on aircrafts and watercrafts. The taxes levied will be used for “general government services,” according to the ordinance, which includes such things as roadwork, financing the county clerk’s office and paying utilities on county buildings.
A total budgeted amount for the 2025-26 fiscal year is roughly $21.6 million, according to the current budget sent to Glasgow News 1 by Barren County Treasurer Amanda Steger. That total includes $1.2 million in federal grants.
In addition to adopting the tax rates, the ordinance adopts the budget.
