Christian County magistrates approved the first reading of an amendment to the current budget, the 2021-22 budget, and state rural and secondary road program recommendations during Tuesday’s meeting.
County Attorney John Soyars explained the amendment for the current budget included funds from the COVID-19 relief bills passed by the federal government.
The COVID-19 relief funding aimed to help local governments pay for COVID-related personal protection equipment, pay emergency responder salaries, and other things the county needed to purchase in relation to combating the virus.
In other action, magistrates heard and approved the first reading of the 2021-22 fiscal year budget of over $42 million. Judge-executive Steve Tribble said the new budget goes into effect July 1 and is the most money ever budgeted for the county.
The general fund will see a nearly $400,000 increase in funding to help improve the Christian County Courthouse, construct a storage building for the jail, and fund a 2.4-percent increase in salaries for a cost of living increase for county employees. The budget also includes over $548,000 in funding for the Hopkinsville-Christian County Public Library and $3.6 million for the road and bridge fund.
Magistrates also approved the rural and secondary road recommendations presented by Charlotte Cotton from the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet. The county is slated to receive a little over $1.3 million, with $180,134 mandated to be used in the county flex funds.
Cotton said the cabinet wanted to pave the entirety of Kentucky 1881/Barkers Mill Road and Kentucky 624/Cerulean-Princeton Road. In addition, pave Kentucky 695/Cox Mill Road from Kentucky 117 to Kentucky 345, a distance of nearly 4 miles, and Kentucky 1914/Crofton Firetower Road from Kentucky 800 to the 4.2-mile point a distance of about 1.7 miles. All of the projects are just above 14.7 miles of state roads.
Additionally, magistrates approved to keep around $120,000 of the flex funding to help repair county roads. The other nearly $60,000 would be used to pave Kentucky 695/Cox Mill Road from Kentucky 345 to a half-mile south of Ashby Lane, a distance of nearly .8 miles.
