Construction on the $3.5 million extension of the Library is nearing completion.
All members were present for the September Fiscal Court meeting this past Tuesday morning in the main courtroom of the LAWRENCE County Courthouse.
County Judge/Executive Phil Carter opened the meeting with prayer and pledge of allegiance and then council members voted on finance and “housekeeping” items.
The main topic of discussion was the tax rate charged by the Lawrence County Library board.
Lawrence co. Judge/Executive and some members of the fiscal court have become vocal opponents of the tax rate charged by the local library board.”Some taxpayers are upset due to the almost $3.5 million dollars that was spent on the Public Library building addition” –Phil Carter
Judge/Executive Phil Carter says too much of the county’s tax $$$ are being collected anhd spent by the non-elected county library board
The new Lawrence Co. Public Library’s open house is set for October 1, 2020. A drive thru carnival, raffles, and COVID safe walkthroughs will be part of the day’s activities.
However, during Tuesday’s Fiscal Court meeting, County Judge Executive Phillip Carter said that many taxpayers are upset with the almost $3.5 million dollars spent for the new building. Due at least partly to COVID, the county is financially hurting and the amount spent for the building is way too high, Carter said.
“So many road and other repairs are needed throughout the county but there is no money available for these repairs, and I believe way to much money was spent on this building,” Carter said while the magistrates were discussing next year’s library budget which was an agenda item.
Lawrence Co. Library Board director Carlie Pelfry
Carlie Pelfry, the LC Library director, was in attendance and spoke to court members in regards to the opening of the Library’s new addition which has recently been completed. There will be a special “circus” at the library to celebrate the completion of the new section which will contain offices and special rooms for other events.
She said she had ‘no comment’ when asked about the Library funds by court members. including the library’s tax rate which has been controversial in recent months at 14.7, just slightly lower than the entire county government’s share. Ms. Pelfry also declined comment for the Lazer instead referring us to a letter she wrote to a print newspaper.
Most of the increases in the library tax rate came under the direction of former librarian Mary McGuire and her “board of directors” amassing at least $6 million in the library’s bank account before the latest wing was added.
In past years taxing districts in Kentucky counties were required to present a copy of their budgets each year but the court had no power to reject the budgets, they could only agree they had been presented to them. But in the last legislative session the Kentucky General Assembly changed the law and beginning this fiscal year, the court must approve the taxing district budgets before they can be enacted.
In Lawrence County, the County Library taxing district took advantage of the law through the years and began raising their percentage of the tax monies at times by the maximum 4% in a year.
There will be a Special Fiscal Court meeting on Monday, October 21, 2020 at 9 am in the big courtroom of the old courthouse to further discuss this matter as well as the library’s tax rate which is the third highest of all taxing districts.
In other court matters, this year’s voting procedures were discussed.
County Clerk Chris Jobe informed court members that Lawrence County has four approved voting centers and are waiting on the approval of four more locations.
Locations for approved voting centers are LCHS, Fallsburg Elementary, Blaine Elementary and Emmanuel Baptist Church in the Meades Branch area. The locations pending approval are Clifford, Webbville and the LC Senior Citizens center here in Louisa.
Jobe also said that early voting will begin on October 13, in the old courthouse. Citizens will be able to vote on the machines in the clerk’s office from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm, during regular business hours. Voters will also be able to vote on Saturdays from 8:30 am to 12:00 pm. Those voting dates in the courthouse are October 17, 24 and October 31.
All items were unanimously approved and accepted by Fiscal Court members.
The library is so important to our community! It provides jobs, an internship program for high school students, feeding programs for children, reading programs for children, genealogical resources, a safe place to study, computers for students who do not have access at home, and so much more. I’m not sure if Carter is ignorant to this or if he just doesn’t care.
The library is important, but but not as important as it was before the internet came along. I haven’t been to a public library in almost 30 years. I do much more reading and research today than I did back then, but times have changed and I now utilize the internet. This tax situation with the public library is ridiculous.
I use the library weekly, and take my children there to read and check out books. Their tax rate is lower than it has been in years. Just because you don’t use it doesn’t mean it’s not important.
Your story is incorrect. The fiscal court can only determine the tax rates for this Library IF the tax rates are above the compensating rate which they are not. You failed to mention that the Library board voted to decrease the tax rate this year resulting in a loss of income for 2021.
Please find out all the i fo before you print the “news”
You are splitting hairs here, Cathi. The court has to approve the tax rate for all taxing districts and raising the rate by using the compensating tax rate is merely keeping up with what the taxing district is already getting, not raising the rate as many people think. I see your point but it is irrelevant in this situation. We had no way of knowing the library board voted to decrease the tax rate this year but they should decrease it every year until they get back to a reasonable rate for their purpose — in my opinion.
Mark, if you would send someone to the library board meetings, which are open to the public and posted about every month, you might know a thing or two about how the library works instead of operating on hearsay.
Sandy Jeffers was covering library board meetings for us before Covid-19 came along and she will continue doing that as soon as it is done. Do you know of any other media that does that in Lawrence Co.?
You can’t take it a ay from them after they have it. Quit bellyaching, their tax rates were set, they received the money and have an awesome library to SHOW how the money was spent. I commend Mrs. Pelphrey for a job well done.
Okay people. If we haven’t learned by now that every time Phil is in office he burns through money as fast as it is taken in. Then he tries to cover his tracks or come up with something like this library thing to show how ignorant he really is. Yeah I get that everyone gets mad that some people know how to budget money and actually do good things with it. People do realize there is an assistant county judge that makes over 70k up there right? This money was in the library fund before she took over. I’m glad we have something nice in this town that’s not in ARC’s pocket like 90% of the town is. I’m glad Carlie stepped up and shut down all the incorrect information out there. That girl has done her homework. If Phil reads this I’d like to say just take responsibility for being a bad county judge. They can’t all be good.
I can’t believe a library makes that much money in LC. Must have way more customers than I realized. Everyone already knows our roads are crap, potholes everywhere, something definitely needs done as far as our roads are concerned. I never use the library, I use the roads everyday. We need a library for obvious reasons, but I personally never use it and I didn’t realize the mass of wealth through tax hikes, etc. that it had accrued.
Its not like anyone is saying the library should be defunded. Its just a little ridiculous that they can collect so much tax that they accumulated $6 million. Seems pretty excessive to me. Yes they do provide a service to the county but what percentage of residents actually use the library? I’m sure its a very small percentage. So that means that the majority of us are stuck paying an unnecessarily excessive tax for a library that we have no use for. Regardless of opinions on Mr. Carter or Mrs. Pelfrey, if you are able to staff, operate, and maintain the library while still accumulating $6 million, then they are collecting to much. If they voted to reduce the amount of tax collected, then that is good. They should aim to set a tax rate that allows them to operate the library efficiently while budgeting what is actually necessary for repairs and improvements. They should not collect to accumulate excessive amounts or continue to make addition after addition to spend money just because they can collect it.
The library was able to accumulate that much money because the previous administration before Mrs. Pelfrey had a high tax rate and spent very little of it. The current administration has been operating at a tax rate to cover operating costs, and the renovation has been planned for some time now—which is why the money hadn’t been spent yet. The renovation is nearly complete, so I’d assume the money is gone now.
As I understand it, when any government entity collects taxes for any particular year, said tax money must be allocated and spent before the last day of that given fiscal year. Said allocation goes into the budgets of various agencies, police, fire, roads, libraries and other things. Once money is in any budget, if it isn’t spent, the state gets it. You can’t rob Peter to pay Paul, in other words it is illegal to pave roads with any other funds, and also illegal to take road funds for any other purpose. As for the County Judge being to blame, he or she cannot allocate funds on their own. Agencies set their presumed budgets aka ask for a certain amount, then either get it or they don’t.
you might be right about that but one thing i have done is paid my fair share for the library
it’s just like the county and ext. tax i pay ever year but get nothing for it might as well just set a match to the money at least i can see where it goes
Etcetera, is abbreviated etc. Not ext KAG. And I will bet $1000 that you never paid a tax, you live in da gooberment housing and have an EBT card and no driver’s license. Am I right about that?
What happened today???? I bet nothing because I checked the laws and in less than 10 minutes found out that Fiscal Court and Mr. Hogan don’t know anything about taxing districts. It seems to me if the county was really concerned about money they would not have renovated the Courthouse.They should have put that money on the roads..
Lorri, the KRS is far to complex in any capacity, especially when it comes to taxation, city or county government, taxing districts etc. No one on earth could read it in 10 minutes! How was the courthouse renovated? Was it tax, or grant? Those two things would make a huge difference. I’m not saying everything they do is honest, it hardly ever is. We own the government, they don’t own us. If something is not to our liking, report it o the state AG’s office. Or run for office yourself. Just an opinion.
I was told that all of that money that was put away from the last librarian was supposed to be used to build a small library in Blaine. Then Carlie came in and had to build a new building!
Yes, the money was to be spent on building something or it would have been lost but why did they have to rebuild our old one? It wasn’t old! It did a great job! It was already one of the nicest library buildings East of Lexington!
I just don’t think the public knew that Blaine could have had a library!!
And I hate to hear them bash Mary McGuire! She was the face of that library for years and truly loved it!!
That makes a lot of sense! Blaine should have a library, it’s an incorporated city; even if no one bothers to run for it’s city offices. I almost moved there in 1994, loved the place! I’m 100% for libraries, a staple of any decent town. I think the Lazer is doing a fine job looking into many things in LC, I cant and don’t speak for them, but I’m confident they will look into what you ask.
They did studies on the Blaine area to see if it could support a library. The area isn’t growing and wouldn’t be able to support a library in that area. Not only would there have to be a building, but additional staff would have to be hired and more funding spent on ordering material for the library, for a facility that wouldn’t be used as much as the main one. That’s why they have the bookmobile and outreach services.
I’ve not seen anyone bashing Mary McGuire, just stating facts– she was tight with library expenditures and there were multiple issues with the renovation she oversaw.
Randall,
I am pretty sure that building a small library in Blaine would have been cheaper than the renovations done to the one in Louisa. The expense of new supplies would not have been more than what they are spending in Louisa. And it could probably run with 1 or 2 employees which would still not be much more of an expense!
I just think the idea of a library in Blaine would have been such an asset to their community! I am sure that a study on their growth wouldn’t show how much the benefit of a small library would be for them. I am guessing that the growth in Blaine hasn’t increased much over the years but that shouldn’t matter as far as this issue. The money was set aside for them.
I am a Louisa resident and I still feel sad for Blaine, that they missed out on something great and no one really knew about it.
As far as my comment about bashing Mary McGuire, I was referring to her name being mentioned in the article. It looked like Carlie was trying to blame her for any tax rate issues.
Mary loved the library and it was her life. She was seen and known as our librarian, and she worked her butt off for it.
I hate to see her name being thrown around negatively, when she retired years ago!! I am sure that she was also sad that Blaine did not get their library that she had planned to have built.
Such a waste. I certainly don’t want to pay library taxes so all the people who don’t work and for the junkies to hang out all day. I heard many people talking about how Phil Carter would fix their roads. Lmao. How’s that working out for ya!! More Republican failure.
The library is so important to our community! It provides jobs, an internship program for high school students, feeding programs for children, reading programs for children, genealogical resources, a safe place to study, computers for students who do not have access at home, and so much more. I’m not sure if Carter is ignorant to this or if he just doesn’t care.
The library is important, but but not as important as it was before the internet came along. I haven’t been to a public library in almost 30 years. I do much more reading and research today than I did back then, but times have changed and I now utilize the internet. This tax situation with the public library is ridiculous.
The internet is very important, and free access to it is something the library provides. The library isn’t just a place for book checkout.
I use the library weekly, and take my children there to read and check out books. Their tax rate is lower than it has been in years. Just because you don’t use it doesn’t mean it’s not important.
now old Phil would really be mad if he paid a tax and gets nothing in return just ask the city residents
Your story is incorrect. The fiscal court can only determine the tax rates for this Library IF the tax rates are above the compensating rate which they are not. You failed to mention that the Library board voted to decrease the tax rate this year resulting in a loss of income for 2021.
Please find out all the i fo before you print the “news”
You are splitting hairs here, Cathi. The court has to approve the tax rate for all taxing districts and raising the rate by using the compensating tax rate is merely keeping up with what the taxing district is already getting, not raising the rate as many people think. I see your point but it is irrelevant in this situation. We had no way of knowing the library board voted to decrease the tax rate this year but they should decrease it every year until they get back to a reasonable rate for their purpose — in my opinion.
Mark, if you would send someone to the library board meetings, which are open to the public and posted about every month, you might know a thing or two about how the library works instead of operating on hearsay.
Sandy Jeffers was covering library board meetings for us before Covid-19 came along and she will continue doing that as soon as it is done. Do you know of any other media that does that in Lawrence Co.?
No, because there is no other media in Lawrence County.
Amen brother library tax is way out of control
just about everybody has the internet now it’s not needed that much
You can’t take it a ay from them after they have it. Quit bellyaching, their tax rates were set, they received the money and have an awesome library to SHOW how the money was spent. I commend Mrs. Pelphrey for a job well done.
Okay people. If we haven’t learned by now that every time Phil is in office he burns through money as fast as it is taken in. Then he tries to cover his tracks or come up with something like this library thing to show how ignorant he really is. Yeah I get that everyone gets mad that some people know how to budget money and actually do good things with it. People do realize there is an assistant county judge that makes over 70k up there right? This money was in the library fund before she took over. I’m glad we have something nice in this town that’s not in ARC’s pocket like 90% of the town is. I’m glad Carlie stepped up and shut down all the incorrect information out there. That girl has done her homework. If Phil reads this I’d like to say just take responsibility for being a bad county judge. They can’t all be good.
I can’t believe a library makes that much money in LC. Must have way more customers than I realized. Everyone already knows our roads are crap, potholes everywhere, something definitely needs done as far as our roads are concerned. I never use the library, I use the roads everyday. We need a library for obvious reasons, but I personally never use it and I didn’t realize the mass of wealth through tax hikes, etc. that it had accrued.
Amen
My road is too rough to travel on to get there!! Maybe someday–or year–or decade???
Its not like anyone is saying the library should be defunded. Its just a little ridiculous that they can collect so much tax that they accumulated $6 million. Seems pretty excessive to me. Yes they do provide a service to the county but what percentage of residents actually use the library? I’m sure its a very small percentage. So that means that the majority of us are stuck paying an unnecessarily excessive tax for a library that we have no use for. Regardless of opinions on Mr. Carter or Mrs. Pelfrey, if you are able to staff, operate, and maintain the library while still accumulating $6 million, then they are collecting to much. If they voted to reduce the amount of tax collected, then that is good. They should aim to set a tax rate that allows them to operate the library efficiently while budgeting what is actually necessary for repairs and improvements. They should not collect to accumulate excessive amounts or continue to make addition after addition to spend money just because they can collect it.
Exactly
Good Management accumulates the money.
Greed accumulates the money!
The library was able to accumulate that much money because the previous administration before Mrs. Pelfrey had a high tax rate and spent very little of it. The current administration has been operating at a tax rate to cover operating costs, and the renovation has been planned for some time now—which is why the money hadn’t been spent yet. The renovation is nearly complete, so I’d assume the money is gone now.
As I understand it, when any government entity collects taxes for any particular year, said tax money must be allocated and spent before the last day of that given fiscal year. Said allocation goes into the budgets of various agencies, police, fire, roads, libraries and other things. Once money is in any budget, if it isn’t spent, the state gets it. You can’t rob Peter to pay Paul, in other words it is illegal to pave roads with any other funds, and also illegal to take road funds for any other purpose. As for the County Judge being to blame, he or she cannot allocate funds on their own. Agencies set their presumed budgets aka ask for a certain amount, then either get it or they don’t.
One thing is clear, KAG has never been to a library.
you might be right about that but one thing i have done is paid my fair share for the library
it’s just like the county and ext. tax i pay ever year but get nothing for it might as well just set a match to the money at least i can see where it goes
DUMP TRUMP 2020
Etcetera, is abbreviated etc. Not ext KAG. And I will bet $1000 that you never paid a tax, you live in da gooberment housing and have an EBT card and no driver’s license. Am I right about that?
TRUMP 2020.
PENCE 2024.
Charley you would lose $1,000 if you had the marbles to bet but i believe the only marbles you have are hanging under your chin
DUMP TRUMP 2020
No, I’m not a demonrat KAG. I’m sure you don’t have a problem with that either! Probably where you ate all that gooberment cheese!
Re-Elect our fine President.
TRUMP 2020.
What happened today???? I bet nothing because I checked the laws and in less than 10 minutes found out that Fiscal Court and Mr. Hogan don’t know anything about taxing districts. It seems to me if the county was really concerned about money they would not have renovated the Courthouse.They should have put that money on the roads..
Lorri, the KRS is far to complex in any capacity, especially when it comes to taxation, city or county government, taxing districts etc. No one on earth could read it in 10 minutes! How was the courthouse renovated? Was it tax, or grant? Those two things would make a huge difference. I’m not saying everything they do is honest, it hardly ever is. We own the government, they don’t own us. If something is not to our liking, report it o the state AG’s office. Or run for office yourself. Just an opinion.
All this is is Phil Carter stirring the crap and whining about what the library has and what he doesn’t.
I was told that all of that money that was put away from the last librarian was supposed to be used to build a small library in Blaine. Then Carlie came in and had to build a new building!
Yes, the money was to be spent on building something or it would have been lost but why did they have to rebuild our old one? It wasn’t old! It did a great job! It was already one of the nicest library buildings East of Lexington!
I just don’t think the public knew that Blaine could have had a library!!
And I hate to hear them bash Mary McGuire! She was the face of that library for years and truly loved it!!
That makes a lot of sense! Blaine should have a library, it’s an incorporated city; even if no one bothers to run for it’s city offices. I almost moved there in 1994, loved the place! I’m 100% for libraries, a staple of any decent town. I think the Lazer is doing a fine job looking into many things in LC, I cant and don’t speak for them, but I’m confident they will look into what you ask.
They did studies on the Blaine area to see if it could support a library. The area isn’t growing and wouldn’t be able to support a library in that area. Not only would there have to be a building, but additional staff would have to be hired and more funding spent on ordering material for the library, for a facility that wouldn’t be used as much as the main one. That’s why they have the bookmobile and outreach services.
I’ve not seen anyone bashing Mary McGuire, just stating facts– she was tight with library expenditures and there were multiple issues with the renovation she oversaw.
Randall,
I am pretty sure that building a small library in Blaine would have been cheaper than the renovations done to the one in Louisa. The expense of new supplies would not have been more than what they are spending in Louisa. And it could probably run with 1 or 2 employees which would still not be much more of an expense!
I just think the idea of a library in Blaine would have been such an asset to their community! I am sure that a study on their growth wouldn’t show how much the benefit of a small library would be for them. I am guessing that the growth in Blaine hasn’t increased much over the years but that shouldn’t matter as far as this issue. The money was set aside for them.
I am a Louisa resident and I still feel sad for Blaine, that they missed out on something great and no one really knew about it.
As far as my comment about bashing Mary McGuire, I was referring to her name being mentioned in the article. It looked like Carlie was trying to blame her for any tax rate issues.
Mary loved the library and it was her life. She was seen and known as our librarian, and she worked her butt off for it.
I hate to see her name being thrown around negatively, when she retired years ago!! I am sure that she was also sad that Blaine did not get their library that she had planned to have built.
To Charles,
Agree with you 100%!
Such a waste. I certainly don’t want to pay library taxes so all the people who don’t work and for the junkies to hang out all day. I heard many people talking about how Phil Carter would fix their roads. Lmao. How’s that working out for ya!! More Republican failure.