Booneville, Owsley County left off gas tax relief extension list

Why were Booneville and Owsley County left out when 33 other Kentucky cities and counties kept the 10-cent gas tax relief? That is the question now facing county and city officials after Gov. Andy Beshear extended the reduction through June 30 for communities that formally asked for it, while places that did not request the extension lost the break on June 11.

The exclusion matters in Owsley County, where the county seat is Booneville and residents already drive long distances for work, school, groceries, medical care and other necessities. Recent Census Bureau data put the county’s population at 3,932 and the mean travel time to work at 31.5 minutes, a reminder that even a small jump at the pump can ripple through household budgets in a rural county with a lower-income profile than many parts of Kentucky.

Beshear’s June 9 order made clear that the extension was not automatic. Kentucky law required county judge/executives and city mayors to send a formal request to keep the 10-cent reduction in place after the original emergency order reached its 30-day mark on June 10. The governor’s office said six county judge/executives, one mayor of a consolidated local government and 33 city mayors submitted written letters asking for the extension. Booneville and Owsley County were not among them.

That left local motorists outside the list of communities still receiving temporary relief while nearby places such as Paintsville and Wolfe County stayed covered. The result was straightforward: in jurisdictions without an extension, gas and diesel prices were set to rise by 10 cents per gallon starting June 11, while the approved communities kept the reduction through the end of the month.

The issue also puts a spotlight on local decision-making in Frankfort and at the county level. Owsley County Judge/Executive Zeke Little Jr., who has served since 2023, is the county’s top elected official and the person residents will want to hear from about why the county did not join the request. Booneville and the wider county now face the same fuel-tax rules that apply when no emergency extension is in place, even as the state continued its broader emergency response to volatile gas prices.

The policy itself carried real money behind it. Beshear said the original gas-tax reduction was projected to save Kentuckians about $27 million per month, and the emergency regulation freezing the gas tax at 26.4 cents per gallon instead of allowing it to rise to 27 cents on July 1 was projected to save about $1.7 million monthly. For Owsley County drivers, the debate is no longer abstract: it is about who asked for relief, who did not, and whether Booneville was fairly left off the list.