SALYERSVILLE – The Magoffin County Fiscal Court met in regular session on Tuesday, April 21, discussing the ambulance service, potential high-paying jobs coming to Magoffin County, transparency with a major utility company and updates to water projects in southern Magoffin.
The court approved the following fund transfers from the general fund: $70,000 to the jail fund, $14,000 to the LGEA, $15,000 to 911; and from the federal and state grant advancement to the general fund: $150,000.
The fiscal court also passed the first reading of the second budget amendment for the current fiscal year.
During department reports, Magoffin County Deputy Judge Kevin Howard updated the court on ongoing projects. At Ramey Memorial Park, Howard said they’ve installed hot water heater showers in the boys’ and girls’ facilities at the pool. They’ve removed the cover off of the pool and have started pressure washing the liner. Next up, he said they will be making any necessary repairs to the liner. AEP has recently installed lights at the new Ramey Park Playground.
At Bloomington and Battlefield Parks, the public restrooms are open, again. At the horse park, he said they’ve finished painting the floor in the concession stands and there are five horse shows scheduled for this summer so far. The horse show set for this Saturday for North Magoffin Fire Department has been canceled due to weather, with the fire department scheduling an open house for that day.
Howard said that the Senate Resolution 139 passed and was signed by the governor, approving two veterans state roads, thanking Representative John Blanton for helping push for that. Howard said they hope to have eight veterans recognized with road dedications this year, thanking the Salyersville DAV for their work to help honor these veterans on roadways near their homes and/or cemeteries.
Brian Bishop with AmeriPro provided an update to the fiscal court on the ambulance services, giving a monthly report. AmeriPro started in Magoffin County on February 25 this year, and for the month of March they mad 97 transports and so far in April they’ve made 61. He explained the busiest times typically start around 10 a.m. and tail off by 2 p.m. He said it picks up, again, at 4 p.m., with the busiest time being 9 to 10 p.m. When looking at it by hour, he said that they’ve had 138 requests, transported 27 individuals, had 13 refusals and 28 cancelations. He said the feedback from the crews is that the community has welcomed them with open arms, but said they are still building rapport with the community. He said Magoffin is fairly large, but their response time goal is 11 minutes and 59 seconds. He said with the size of the county, the topography, etc., right now their average response time is 24 minutes and 44 seconds, with a shoot time of less than 2 minutes (time from notification to an ambulance on the road). He said their practice is they will take the patient wherever they want to go (within the area). From the data from March, he said 53 transports were going to Paintsville, 32 were going to Highlands, with the rest spread out with other surrounding areas. He said they will be providing these reports monthly. He also noted that they will be meeting with the Big Sandy Area Development District next week about the regionalization of EMS in the area.
Bishop said. “This is not an inexpensive endeavor, but we are committed to working to find ways to make this work, not just for Magoffin County, but for others that may want to join us in a more regionalized approach to EMS.”
Magoffin County Judge/Executive Don McFarland commended them for their quick work dispatching into the community and for their ongoing efforts.
Thomas Hazlette with Fidelis Energy Group went over a proposal to bring synthetic fuel to the county, explaining they have the technology to make diesel, proposing to sell it to the county at $1.87/gallon.
“It’s Magoffin County fuel made by Magoffin County people,” Hazlette said. “Run on Magoffin County roads and Magoffin County school buses and state highway trucks, county road garage trucks and county road garage equipment.”
In order to do it, he said they are proposing to use 10 acres from the new industrial park, and within the first five years they will be able to add 51-72 Magoffin County jobs starting at $37/hour. He said that will be a half a million to three-quarters of a million dollars in occupational tax revenue for the county a year. He said what they take in natural gas is a feed stock, 750,000 cubic feet of natural gas per day on a 400-kilowatt unit will make 5,500 gallons of fuel per day. Hazlette explained it’s not a refinery, but it’s a similar refining process. He said the sooner they close on the property, they will be able to start bringing jobs to Magoffin County as early as July 2027. He said they would probably add another two units in Magoffin County later on, working with Frontier Gas to make sure they have the availability of natural gas on a 4” feeder line. He said they can also make aviation fuel and ethanol. He also said the fuel they make is 75% cleaner than conventional fuel. If they expand to three units, they are looking at adding around130 jobs here.
This would be the first fuel plant of its kind in the state, but they wanted to bring the technology and jobs to Eastern Kentucky, Hazlette explained, noting Magoffin Countians traditionally have had to travel for good paying jobs.
“Eastern Kentucky folks get put down a lot,” Hazlette said. “They’re the butt of a lot of jokes. They don’t really see a lot of people who see what I see, and I’m one of them. A long time ago in business, someone gave me an opportunity to get where I am. That’s what we want to do. There are a thousand people like me who just want an opportunity and that’s what we want to do, is give them an opportunity.”
He provided copies of the project and timeline to the fiscal court, noting they are ahead of schedule right now, hoping to get land acquisition finished by June 30, noting Representative John Blanton helped to get the project where it is and settling on starting in Magoffin County.
Hazlette also noted the project wouldn’t cost the fiscal court anything.
Dwayne Arnett with the Magoffin County Water District updated the court on the KY 542/1502 and KY 378 water project. He said the project has been going on quite a while, noting the biggest challenge was just getting funding for each phase of the project. He said they will open bids for the first phase of the project on May 12, with the advertisement for bids on page B5 of this issue of the SI. He explained the project is being cut into two phases because they ran into some issues trying to get some places for booster stations and tanks, with some things taking longer than others for environmental issues. Some of the money has to be used by October 2026, so in order to cut down on the timeframe and to use the money before expires they decided to cut it into phases. Phase 1 will involve the areas that can be gravity-fed. He also said a lot of people have been working behind the scenes. Both phases have been fully funded, but they have to finish the groundwork for Phase 2 before they can start that part of the project. For Phase 1, they will bring county water to KY 542, 1502 and 378 as far as they can push it without booster stations while meeting the PSC’s and Division of Water’s requirements.
“We’ve been working on this project diligently for quite a while,” Arnett said, noting that even though they’ve not had a lot of public updates, they’ve been working to push the project along.
Zachary Tackett with the Creek Don’t Rise Coalition proposed a resolution supporting transparency and public accountability in the management audit of Kentucky Power, noting it is not political, just asking for financial accountability, transparency and fairness from Kentucky Power, wanting to know where the money goes and for the excess to go back to the customers. The fiscal court agreed to join Pike, Letcher, Floyd and Lawrence counties, passing the resolution supporting financial transparency of Kentucky Power.
The fiscal court also passed the following two resolutions honoring two war heroes:
- KY Rt. 460 from mile point 10.49 – 10.886 in Magoffin County be forever known as Corporal Fred Lamarr Salyer Memorial Road, honoring Salyer, who died in battle in Vietnam;
- KY Rt. 1635 from mile point 3.65 – 4.220 in Magoffin County, to be forever known as Private Hargis Salyer, who died in battle during World War II.
The full resolutions will run after their respective road dedication ceremonies are held. The dates of those ceremonies will be released when the information is made available.
The fiscal court authorized bidding for bulk diesel fuel and gasoline; motor oil and grease; culvert, tile and pipes; gravel and rock; blacktop/asphalt; cold patch and chip seal oil gravel and other road material hauling services; and structural rail. That advertisement can be viewed on page B5 of this issue of the SI.
The court received Magoffin County Extension District Board’s budget for the upcoming fiscal year, July 1, 2026, through June 30, 2027. The court can only receive the budget; the extension district’s board passes the budget.
The court approved the board appointment of Dale Shepherd to a four-year term on the library board; and the reappointments of Manual Howard and Jeremiah Cody Prater to four-year terms on the housing board.
The fiscal court approved to add the Magoffin County High School bridge into the county road system in order to receive funding (has to go to a county, not a school district) to replace the bridge going up to the football field.
They also talked about Goat Mountain, a road that has two residences on it and is in bad shape, but owned and abandoned by a coal company. The road needs general maintenance of grading and gravel to make the road passable. Judge McFarland said he wants to work to try to bring this road into the county road system if it can be legally done, but he’s unsure of who he could reach out to with the coal company to make sure it could be deeded to the county. Until the county attorney and Judge McFarland can look into the legalities of it further, the court agreed to table the matter.
The court approved to accept River Lane on Holderby Road into the county road system.
Under communications, Judge McFarland thanked everyone for the presentations, especially the AmeriPro ambulance services for their monthly report, as well as from Fidelis for talking about bringing jobs to Magoffin County.
The fiscal court also approved to reschedule the regular May meeting to Wednesday, May 20, 2026, at 5 p.m., since the regular meeting time would fall on Election Day, opting to move it to the next day.
