By Blair Dedrick, New Era Staff Writer

The city-mandated Stormwater Utility fee brought displeasure to Christian County officials Monday at the first of three days of budget request hearings.

While not on the agenda, the fee was brought up during the meeting with the Hopkinsville-Christian County Planning Commission.

“People out in rural Christian County don’t pay city taxes, but when those people pay their county taxes, they are indirectly paying this,” said Judge-Executive Steve Tribble after the meeting. He added that since schools also have to pay the tax, residents may also be affected if the school board decided to raise the school tax.

Officials have not come up with a final estimate of what the new fee will cost the county, but the bill is expected to be less than $20,000.

For the average homeowner, the fees add $3 to the monthly water bill. For an entity such as Christian County, which owns multiple buildings, parks and parking lots throughout the city, the fees add up quickly.

Tribble estimates that fees for Ruff Park alone will be around $250 per month.

While these fees are not directly in the Planning Commission’s proposed budget, $160,000 of all the monies collected by the City of Hopkinsville from this fee go to the commission for wastewater projects.

The Planning Commission works for both the city and the county, making it difficult, said Magistrate Bill Bruce, to know exactly what money goes toward each entity in the form of projects. Bourne’s budget, however, does not ask the county for any increase in basic funding, and the commission plans to use $12,000 out of their reserve funds to balance the budget, up from $10,000 last year.

“This may be one of the last times we come to ya’ll without (asking for) an increase in funding,” Bourne said to the committee.

The Planning Commission budget does ask for an additional $5,000 from the county to go toward the Pennyrile Solid Waste Management Plan, which must be updated every five years to meet state mandates.

In contrast to the Planning Commission’s flat budget request, the road department’s requested budget went up more than $1.46 million. The increase was expected by the budget committee as the April 2 tornado last year put the department behind in paving work, making an aggressive approach this year appropriate, said County magistrate Tom Jones.

The most substantial increase was for asphalt to overlay existing paved roads and for patchwork.

“It’s hard to tell you how much I’m going to need for asphalt patches,” said public works director Chuck Chambers. “It depends on the projects.”

Other budget increases for the road department came with increases in the price of concrete, diesel and petroleum products, along with the need to build a bridge on Cheatham Road, increase salaries in line with cost-of-living and buy a new pick-up truck.

Also presenting budget requests Monday were the Pennyroyal Area Museum, the volunteer fire department and the Pennyroyal Arts Council.

“We have to do the things we have to do statutorily, and I hope we can give people what we gave them in the past because when we give them the same (as in the past), we’re actually cuttin’ ‘em,” said Tribble.

Blair Dedrick can be reached at 887-3240 or at bdedrick@kentuckynewera.com.