GLASGOW – After an increase in the property tax rate last year, Barren County residents can expect a slight decrease next year in their tax rate.

The Barren County coroner’s office, meanwhile, will receive its long-sought vehicle.

Barren County Fiscal Court unanimously approved the first reading of a slight decrease in the county’s property tax rate Tuesday, dropping it from 14.6 cents per every $100 of assessed value to 14.5 cents per $100 – meaning, for example, a payment of $145 on a property with an assessed value of $100,000.

In July 2016, fiscal court approved a measure to increase the tax rate from 13.8 cents per $100 of assessed value to 14.6 cents in an effort to help close a roughly $800,000 shortfall in the general fund for the fiscal year that began July 1, 2016. Barren County Judge-Executive Micheal Hale said Tuesday that taxpayers helped the county improve its financial stability, so fiscal court wanted to give taxpayers a small break in return.

Barren County’s $14.8 million budget for this fiscal year doesn’t require the county to borrow from the road fund to fill gaps in the general fund for July, as numerous budgets in the past have done.

A tax of 15.3 cents per $100 of assessed value on tangible personal property, aircraft and watercraft remains unchanged, Hale said.

The 14.5-cent rate is the compensating rate, Hale said.

“Compensating allows us to bring in what we brought in last year, the same amount,” he said. “Financially, we’re a little more solid than we were.”

Barren County Treasurer Denise Riddle said the county collected roughly $2.5 million last fiscal year and expects to bring in about $2.7 million this year.

District 2 Magistrate Trent Riddle said he was excited about the chance to lower taxes in the county.

“As a taxpayer, I’m very happy and as a magistrate, I’m pleased that taxes didn’t go up,” he said, adding that he hoped the rates wouldn’t go up again for a long time.

Fiscal court also approved a measure to request a purchase order for equipment needed to outfit a van donated by A.F. Crow and Son Funeral Home to the Barren County coroner’s office.

Coroner Tim Gibson said the office has been depending on Barren-Metcalfe County Emergency Medical Services to transport cadavers to T.J. Samson Community Hospital for X-rays or storage in the facility’s morgue or to Louisville for autopsies.

When when the ambulance service can’t spare an ambulance, however, the coroner has to borrow a van from a local funeral home, he said.

At $5,512, the equipment that will be purchased includes a stretcher, a tray to hold a cadaver in the back of the van and emergency vehicle lighting, as well as letter on the side of the vehicle reading “Barren County Coroner,” Gibson said.

“Mr. Follis Crow of A.F. Crow and Son Funeral Home has stepped up to the plate and has donated to the coroner’s office a vehicle … and I would like to publicly commend him and thank him for his most generous donation, which is greatly, greatly appreciated,” Gibson said.

Crow said the van is a 2009 Dodge Caravan the funeral home has used as a first-call vehicle and a backup hearse.

The funeral home decided to donate the van because of the coroner’s obvious need for one, he said. “We were about getting ready to replace it, and we saw the need was there,” he said.

– Follow reporter Jackson French on Twitter @Jackson_French or visit bgdailynews.com.