A statewide increase in vehicle inspection fees is proving to be a boon for the Warren County Sheriff’s Office.

With no increase in funding from the county general fund, Sheriff Brett Hightower has been approved for a 2025 budget of $13.05 million that exceeds the 2024 budget of $12.58 million and will allow him to add two deputies to his growing staff.

The increase continues a trend that has seen the Sheriff’s Office budget balloon from $9.35 million in 2022, but the coming year’s hike in spending comes with no impact on county coffers.

In fact, Hightower’s request of $6.5 million in Warren Fiscal Court assistance is slightly lower than the 2024 amount of $6.58 million. Estimated receipts to the office, though, have jumped from 2024’s $6 million to a projected $6.55 million.

The main reason? Legislation passed last year by the Kentucky General Assembly that bumped the vehicle inspection fee from $5 to $15.

In a county growing as rapidly as any of Kentucky’s 120 counties, that fee hike adds up.

“When you have as many vehicles as we do, that (fee) does increase the bottom line,” Hightower said. “It will help us fund another two deputy positions.”

An increase in manpower is needed in a county that has grown from 113,792 in the 2010 U.S. Census count to more than 140,000 today. That population increase also means an uptick in the property tax receipts the Sheriff’s Office collects.

“We get a small percentage of the total tax collection we take in,” Hightower said, “so that will go up.”

The sheriff said the projected increases in vehicle inspection fees and property taxes will allow him to hire two deputies and move a prisoner transport position from part-time to full-time.

“We have multiple people every day who have to be transferred to other jails or to where they’re standing trial,” Hightower said.

The additional deputies are needed, the sheriff said, because of the county’s continuing growth.

“There has been no spike in any particular type of crime, but with the increased number of people, it grows,” he said. “It tends to increase with the population increase.”

Hightower now has a staff of 115 people, and salary and benefits for that staff account for the bulk ($11.6 million) of his 2025 budget.

Operating expenses for the Sheriff’s Office are up from an amended $1,439,000 in 2024 to a projected $1,457,000 in 2025. The biggest line items are fuel ($300,000), tech support ($190,000), vehicles and maintenance ($160,000), and prisoner transport ($100,000).

The new year is expected to mean a new location for the Sheriff’s Office as it moves most of its functions from the downtown county courthouse to the Sugar Maple Square property on Ky. 185, possibly by the end of 2025. Hightower expects the new location to mean improved efficiency for his staff and the public.

“The new facility will help move customers through more smoothly,” he said. “We’re always looking for ways to make our office as efficient as possible.”