Fiscal court addresses ARPA funds usage, football entrance at park and more

By MELINDA J. OVERSTREET
for Glasgow News 1
In addition to property matters reported separately by Glasgow News 1, the Barren County Fiscal Court covered a lot of ground in other topics as well at its regular meeting Tuesday.
Several of the items had been discussed in committee meetings the day before or were part of department heads’ discussions and were mostly mentioned in brief reports to the full fiscal court, but items required action by the full group.
Judge-Executive Jamie Bewley Byrd reported that the new consultants the county hired to review expenditures of American Rescue Plan Act funds have informed her that many of the county’s routine expenditures were eligible for ARPA funding that has been being saved for specific uses. So, the county could consider all of its ARPA money as spent, and the funds in the ARPA account could be moved to the General Fund to be used as needed, but Byrd said she anticipated that at least part of that roughly $4.83 million would go into a savings account for the time being.
The fiscal court approved handling things in this manner and the actual transfer from the ARPA Fund to the General Fund.
Among the other actions the county’s legislative body approved – all unanimously with all members present – were:
— $30,000 for construction by Larry Glass Construction of a new entrance and additional parking at the football field at Jackie B. Browning Park;
— $35,000 for NCI Forming to construct a salt storage shed, 30 x 40 feet with capacity to hold about 300 tons of salt, at the Road Department property with concrete walls and floor and hoop top;
— developing specifications advertising for bids for work on the Happy Hollow Loop low-water ford, with Byrd saying that she believes they’ll have some emergency road funding money that hopefully can cover that; and
— payment of $146,368 to the City of Glasgow for half of animal control costs in the 2021-22 fiscal year, as determined by audit of that year’s finances, which runs a year or two behind;
— second reading of an ordinance adding Annette Lane, Christopher Avenue and Jessica Avenue to the county road system;
— renewal of Austin Boat Ramp lease with U.S. Army Corps of Engineers;
— request and agreement for litter abatement grant;
— increase of jail housing fee for Monroe and Metcalfe counties’ inmates from $40 to $45 per day per inmate;
— joining a regional opioid coalition at a one-time cost of $1,000 with entities such as the Barren River Area Development District, Med Center Health, Barren River District Health Department and Lifeskills to determine and use a regional approach to combating opioid addiction utilizing funds coming to counties (nearly $100,000 here so far) from a class-action lawsuit settlement; and
— purchase of security camera system for roughly $2,800 plus $360 annually for maintenance for the storage location for voting machines.
The possible purchase or lease of a new mail system was tabled pending obtaining clarification on some of the informational points. The current equipment is no longer supported by the U.S. Postal Service, said Tammie Branstetter, fiscal court clerk, so it needs to be replaced by the end of the year.
Additional topics for which no action was taken that are in earlier stages of discussion and exploration include:
— the possibility of a separate taxing district for the health department rather than covering the required expenses from the General Fund;
— establishing the percentage the sheriff’s office should deduct from volunteer fire department subscription fees as a collection fee, an act required by state law that hasn’t been happening, and researching how those funds can be used, e.g. whether they be distributed to the VFDs;
— changing the job roles for some jail employees to make them ineligible for the higher required contributions to the retirement system for hazardous-duty work versus nonhazardous, and then using the extra money that would have gone to the retirement system to increase the base rate of pay for those employees;
— continuing work on developing and ordinance and/or other rules regarding the installation of road tiles (drainage pipes); and
— researching provision of county easement along some of the roads off Ky. 90 east of Glasgow for Bluegrass Gas to install some new service lines to improve pressure levels for existing customers and provide service for some new ones.