Hardin County Fiscal Court holds last meeting for 2024

The Hardin County Fiscal Court met for their final meeting of the year Thursday afternoon.

Hardin County Sheriff John Ward reported that his office made 193 arrests and issued 176 citations in October and November. When discussing his office’s budget request for calendar year 2025, Ward said the county’s supplement for the budget is the same as last year.

“Our revenue will increase through the fees, but the judge asked us to hold it at the same contribution rate, supplement rate that the court did last year,” Ward said.

Hardin County Clerk Brian D. Smith recounted some of his office’s accomplishments in 2024 including opening the branch office in Radcliff, securing more than $300,000 in state grant funding, and working through the rollout of a new state vehicle registration system. Smith also made his office’s budget request for calendar year 2025.

“In my first year’s budget, we requested $2.51 million, which represented a cut of $76,000 from 2023,” Smith said. “This year we’re coming in a little higher than last year with a request of $2.515 million, representing a cut of over $71,000 from 2023. We think that’s the fiscally responsible thing to do.”

Resolutions for both budget requests were approved, along with a resolution amending the sheriff’s office’s 2024 calendar year budget to balance line items.

At the beginning of the meeting, Hardin County Judge/Executive Keith Taul asked for a moment of silence for the families of county residents impacted by drug overdose deaths in 2024. During magistrate comments, Magistrate Aaron Pennington encouraged anybody struggling with addiction to take advantage of available resources.

“We do offer services to try to help, and we have information out there with (Hardin County Quick Response Team Coordinator) Justin Blair, and we just want to keep pounding that out there so people understand that we are providing, and we are trying to provide, more resources for people to get help,” Pennington said.

The Hardin County Fiscal Court will next meet January 14.