HENDERSON, Ky. — County officials approved a budget Thursday that is $2.5 million smaller than the current one — with deep cuts affecting volunteer fire departments.
The Courier Press reported that the volunteer fire departments have been getting $20,000 each recently. In the coming year, they’ll only get $7,000.
Judge-executive Hugh McCormick acknowledged that the fire department cuts are “really going to be a sore spot for a lot of folks.”
Cuts will also affect the road department by about $100,000, with virtually no new machinery being bought in the coming year. The Humane Society of Henderson County is going from $110,000 to $80,000; the Henderson Area Arts Alliance from $10,000 to $5,000; and Riverview School from $5,000 to $2,500, which McCormick said he particularly regretted, according to the report.
“We’ve cut and we’ve cut and we’ve cut in so many areas,” McCormick said. “We’ll have to be more thrifty in the ways we get things done.”
Despite all those cuts, there are plans to spend $65,000 on the salary of a deputy judge-executive, according to the report.
“With revenues being lost the way they are, you would think, ‘Why in the world are you doing it now?’ That’s exactly why I’m doing it now,” McCormick said. “We’ll have another body to get things done.”
McCormick also recommended how to pay for the county’s share of 911 improvements.
“I’m of the opinion that we should put it on the county tax bill, have it collected and then pay for the 911 system out of the revenues,” he said. “It’s a user fee, not a tax.”