By JAMES BROWN
Glasgow News 1
The Barren County Fiscal Court Administrative and Budget committee met Monday afternoon to learn about the budget status.
“A lot of the items we might want to discuss about the budget we don’t know yet,” committee chair Marty Kinslow said. “We don’t have the end of the year numbers yet.”
County treasurer Amanda Steger confirmed the budget numbers for the end of the 2025-26 fiscal year have not been finalized.
“I just wanted the numbers when you get them ready to send to the DLG (Department for Local Government,” Kinslow said.
The Kentucky Department for Local Government (DLG), under the Office of the Governor, provides financial help in the way of grant and loan assistance, as well as advising local governments in matters of budget, personnel and other issues relevant to those entities, according the the agencies website.
Kinslow said those budget numbers are what he regards as the official numbers.
“It is,” Steger said. “I don’t want to give anything out until then.”
Kinslow asked Judge-Executive Jamie Bewley Byrd when the county could expect to get tax rate recommendations from the DLG.
Byrd, who called into the meeting, said, “We typically will get those at the end of July, beginning of August. And we typically vote on that in August and September.”
Kinslow said the committee should have the tax rate recommendation from the state by the August meeting, “and it will be up to us to recommend what we are going to do for the tax rate next year.”
He explained that the county gets a report from the state local government office every year, “and they give us a range of tax rates … . We decide what we are going to do on their recommendation.”
The committee members — Kinslow, Jeff Botts and Brad Groce — spent the remainder of the meeting discussing the ongoing planning and zoning town halls. County Attorney Mike Richardson was there as well.
The first town hall was July 14 at Temple Hill Elementary. The next one is Tuesday, July 21, at Austin Tracy Elementary from 5 to 7 p.m.
During the meeting, Byrd said the third meeting will be Aug. 10 at Park City Elementary and the fourth will be Aug. 13 at Hiseville Elementary.
