The Boone County Fiscal Court has approved a resolution executing a police services contract between the county and the Boone County Sheriff’s Office.
“This is something we have to do every year,” Boone County Treasurer/Finance Director Robert Notton said. “We have to certify to the state how many sheriff’s deputies are employed and our budget that we provide to the sheriff’s office.”
Notton indicated the action would enable receipt of court facility fee funds from the state totaling around $80,000 annually.
“This dates back to when we did the law enforcement merger,” Boone County Judge/Executive Gary W. Moore said. “The fees are collected from people using our court system, but we couldn’t get them back. So now, in order to access that fund, we have to pass this resolution each year to qualify for the reimbursement.”
According to Moore, the court fees – levied by the state will assist with paying for some of the costs of professional law enforcement.
“The county police would receive these funds,” he said. “At the time, the state legislation didn’t include sheriff’s departments. The merger in creating the professional policing within the sheriff’s department – we felt like we were being penalized. Because we would be getting these fees if we still had a county police force – which happened before the merger.”
