By MICHAEL CRIMMINS
Glasgow News 1
Mary Wood Weldon Memorial Library had its 2025-26 tax rate set during the special-called Barren County Fiscal Court meeting on Sept. 10.
The library’s tax rate is set at 2.9 cents per $100 of assessed value. For context, a property assessed at $500,000 would be charged $145.
In his reading, Barren County Attorney Mike Richardson said that while the library does not have a separate taxing district, it can be funded by a tax rate since it is the fiscal court levying the tax and not the library.
“The way the statute’s written you either do it as a tax or as an appropriation where you calculate what it would be if it was done under a tax [and] you take that money from the general fund and give it to the library,” Richardson said. “Basically, the statute itself authorizes a tax…, the county itself is levying the tax.”
The inclusion of the word “levy” gives the “governing units” the authority to establish a rate through which the library receives its funds.
“It gives [the county] the authority right there [in the statute] to do the tax,” Richardson said.
The 2.9 cents rate is lower than the 5 cents minimum stipulated in the Kentucky Revised Statute, however a library agreement made between the fiscal court, the library’s board of trustees and the Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives was included in the court material as the statute dictates.
Earlier this year, library board member David Dickerson raised questions about the library’s funding to the fiscal court magistrates, commenting that the statute states the court will fund the library from an appropriation out of the county’s general fund. At the time, Richardson said he would look through the statutes.
“The [Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives] was of the opinion that ‘it says the word appropriation therefore you must’…but it didn’t make sense to me because KRS 173.310 [states] you’re supposed to do the appropriate levy or appropriation [to fund the library,]” Richardson said. “The other statute that mentions how [the funds] get to the library mentions appropriate, but in order to say that’s only an appropriation you have to completely ignore that levy language in the previous statute.”
Sheri Hammer, with the sheriff’s office, which collects taxes, said they turn the money over to the library’s board of trustees.
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