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Library raises funding questions with Barren fiscal court

Jun 3, 2025 | 3:27 PM

By MICHAEL CRIMMINS
Glasgow News 1

Questions were raised about the Mary Wood Weldon Memorial Library’s funding, specifically from where its funding is comes, during the Barren County Fiscal Court meeting Tuesday.

Barren County’s public library and its board of trustees were created on Sept. 20, 1955 by an ordinance of vote of the fiscal court under Kentucky Revised Statute 173.310 “to serve the citizens of [the] county,” according to an agreement made between the library and the fiscal court.

David Dickerson, who was appointed to the library board by Barren County Judge-Executive Jamie Bewley Byrd, said the library is doing “very, very good work,” but that there were some things that needed to be “cleaned up.”

“Here’s the problem the library has, the statute that established us has a funding mechanism that [states] the county shall pay from the general levy 5 cents per $100 of the valuation,” Dickerson said. “Now I’m not a lawyer so I’ll give [the statute] to [the county] attorney so he can look at it…. We have a line item, the library district, on our tax bills…, but the library is not a taxing district — it’s never been approved to be a taxing district — so, frankly, I’m not sure it’s legal to collect that… when the statute says the fiscal court is responsible for funding it out of the general levy.”

“We need to do some housekeeping and get this cleaned up, and do this the right way. It’s just not correct in our interpretation,” he added.

The Kentucky Revised Statute that deals with “annual appropriations” — KRS 173.360 — states annual allocations should be at a minimum 5 cents but not more than 15 cents on “$100 worth of property assessed for local taxation” unless a “mutual agreement of the county library, the county fiscal court and the state Department for Libraries and Archives” establishes a lesser amount. In the 2023-24 fiscal year the rate was 2.9 cents.

Dickerson also cited a 1984 court case, Hayse v. Board of Trustees Lexington Public Library, which affirmed an earlier trial court’s decision to “grant summary judgement requiring the Lexington-Fayette Urban County government to appropriate out of its general funds to the Lexington Public Library an amount consistent with [the statute].”

Barren County Attorney Mike Richardson said he would double check, but believed it was a separate taxing district.

“My understanding is that it is a taxing district,” Richardson said. “It has been reported that it is a taxing district [by the Department of Local Government].”

Dickerson asked for that in writing.

He also mentioned the desire to expand library programs to get children interested in the library and help the school districts’ efforts in teaching them to read well.

“A vibrant, dynamic library is an important thing for companies coming here to look at Barren County,” Dickerson said. “There should be no argument.”

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