Previously, the Jessamine County Fiscal Court had agreed to pay $30,000 of Jackie Holt's salary, and the other $12,000 was being paid for by the county's child support program. Now, the state funding will pay $28,000 and the rest, $14,000, will be provided by child support.
Goettl said the hiring of Holt will bring the county up to speed in terms of having enough personnel to operate the county attorney's office.
"In terms of where we are now in growth, I think this gives us the appropriate amount of assistance in the county, and based upon our caseload, we are parallel with where we should be," he said.
The other two county attorneys are Chief Assistant Randy Norris and Anna Roberts Smith, who heads up the criminal prosecution division.
The county attorney's office prosecutes all misdemeanor crimes, as well as juvenile matters, appellate cases, mental health (competency) cases, and child support cases. The office also provides civil and legal advice to the Jessamine County Fiscal Court.
Goettl said that before obtaining the state funding, Jessamine was 100 out of 120 counties that received state funding.
"This will move us up to 70th," Goettl said.
He added that acquiring the funding was a "team effort."
"There were a number of people who participated in it," he said. "It was my top priority of the year to get the funding because ... we've had such a tremendous growth in the county. I had the help of Bob Damron, Tom Buford, Nancy Stone, who provided demographics on growth, and the county judge executive and fiscal court."
To compile the information needed to present to the council, Goettl had to compare what every county was receiving in state funding verses their case loads.
"Governor Fletcher's budget staff and chief of staff helped me in putting those numbers together so that I could go and make a presentation to the Prosecutor's Advisory Council, and show them that we have a need for this, and that we will be in line to have the money appropriated for this because of the growth of the county," Goettl said.
Jessamine County Judge-Executive Wm. Neal Cassity said he and the magistrates are glad the funding came through.
"It has worked out well, and we are well pleased that they [state] are doing what they are supposed to do," he said.
