GLASGOW – Barren Fiscal Court approved new tax rates, which are unchanged from last fiscal year, except for an expansion of what is considered taxable under the county’s ambulance tax.

The ambulance tax, which funds Barren County’s portion of the Barren-Metcalfe County Ambulance Service, previously involved a tax of 2.4 cents per $100 of assessed value on personal property.

Now, the same tax rate will be levied on aircraft, tangible personal property, which includes property that can be physically relocated like furniture, and “(business) inventory that is in transit,” according to Martin Peterson, vice chair of the Special Ambulance Service Taxing District Board, which Barren County uses to fund its share of the ambulance service’s operating costs.

Peterson said the board decided to increase the range of things considered taxable in the interest of raising the funds that will be needed to acquire a building Barren County ambulances could use.

“This is like the first step toward being enabled to build a new building that effectively meets the current and ongoing need of the ambulance service,” he said.

The ambulance service currently stations ambulances for Barren County at a building on East Main Street in Glasgow and another building at the Glasgow Municipal Airport but said it would be better for the service to be stationed in a building owned by the taxing district.

“There is a plan or a thought that because the existing physical facilities are not meeting the needs of the service that we need to go out and essentially start planning for an entire new fiscal plan, a new building that would meet the needs of the service,” he said.

The issue mainly lies in the fact that there is not enough space at the two facilities for all the ambulances used in Barren County, Peterson said.

Additionally, agreements with the Glasgow Electric Plant Board, which will legally take over the East Main Street property if the ambulance service relocates, and the airport prevent the board from owning those properties despite paying for continuous improvements and maintenance of the facilities, he said.

According to Peterson, the most by state law the board can raise the ambulance tax is 4 percent, though an increase of that size would not be enough to raise the tax to even 2.5 cents per $100.

Additionally, Peterson said there’s a possibility of residents opposed to such an increase filing a petition to hold an election to cast down a 4 percent increase, which the board would have to pay for.

“Rather than running the risk of having our money go for those purposes, we’d like to support the liberty of the ambulance service, so we’ve been very hesitant so far to make any change in the real property tax rate,” he said.

Carl Dickerson was the only magistrate to vote against acknowledging the tax expansion, which was set by the taxing district board.

Magistrate Trent Riddle also vocally objected to the tax expansion because the burden of paying for the county’s ambulance service, he said, would fall mainly on business owners.

“The people that pay the price here are the business owners, the small business owners,” he said.

“We have to find a source where we can tax more people for the ambulance service than just the same people.”

In that same motion, fiscal court acknowledged the Extension District’s tax remaining unchanged at 1.668 cents per $100 for real property, 1.9063 cents on personal property, 1.8 cents per $100 for motor vehicles and watercraft and the Library Tax staying the same at 2.9 cents per $100 on real property and 1.9063 cents on personal property.

The county’s real estate tax at 14.5 cents per $100 of assessed value and motor vehicle and watercraft tax at 15.3 cents per $100 of assessed value remained unchanged and passed unanimously.

In another matter, fiscal court discussed amendments to the taxing district’s ordinance, which Charlie O’Neal, the ambulance service’s director, said would allow the the taxing district to buy property and establish a continuity of operations plan.

“We want to clearly delineate that the local taxing board has the authority to … purchase and own property on behalf of the citizens of Barren County and then the other thing that we want to do is develop a COOP plan, or a continuity of operations plan,” he said. “Under our current existence, if something were to happen to the ambulance board of directors, there is no contingency in place to allow any other entity to assume responsibility of day-to-day operations of the ambulance service.”

Fiscal court voted to table the motion because there was no physical copy of the measure for them to read.

In another matter, fiscal court went into closed session to discuss deliberations on the future acquisition or sale of real or property by a public agency, proposed litigation against or on behalf of a public agency and “discussions which might lead to the appointment, discipline or dismissal of an employee.”