149.540 County payments to statewide system -- Power to require owners to participate -- Adjustments in acreage. (1) After January 1, 1959, all counties receiving state forest fire protection and all counties having received notice of the intended establishment of such service shall annually pay to the cabinet a sum equivalent to two cents ($0.02) per acre of privately owned timberlands according to the most current United States Forest Service Survey of Kentucky subject to additions and deductions of acreage since the making of such study. Such payments shall be due and payable on September 15 following the assessment. (2) Contributions may be met out of the general funds of the county and in addition the fiscal court may require each owner of timberland in the county to participate directly by paying into a special county forest fire protection fund an assessment not exceeding three cents ($0.03) per year for each acre of timberland of which he is the owner. (3) In any case in which the cabinet and the governing body of any county cannot agree upon the additions or deductions to privately owned forest acreage in a particular county, or to changes in forest acreage from year to year, the question shall be submitted to the judge of the Circuit Court of the county by a summary and informal proceeding, and a decision of the judge, certified to the governing body and to the cabinet respectively, shall be conclusive and final. Effective: July 15, 1982 History: Amended 1982 Ky. Acts ch. 142, sec. 10, effective July 15, 1982. -- Amended 1976 (1st Extra. Sess.) Ky. Acts ch. 14, sec. 161, effective January 2, 1978. -- Amended 1974 Ky. Acts ch. 74, Art. III, sec. 13(3). -- Amended 1966 Ky. Acts ch. 23, sec. 49. -- Created 1958 Ky. Acts ch. 139, sec. 4.