Fiscal court hires courthouse custodian, approves bills for sheriff supplies

BY MELINDA J. OVERSTREET
GLASGOW NEWS 1
At a special-called meeting Friday afternoon, the Barren County Fiscal Court hired a person as an employee to do custodial work at the Barren County Courthouse and agreed to the payment of a couple of bills.
The bills were for $3,297 for ammunition from Master Pawn of Horse Cave and $15,444 for rifles and associated shipping costs from Bravo Co. USA, all for the sheriff’s office.
Sheriff Kent Keen said, in answering questions from magistrates, that the purchases would be reimbursed with an approved homeland security grant once copies of the receipts are submitted.
With all members present, the vote was unanimous for this and the following item.
Judge-Executive Jamie Bewley Byrd said that would work better for the county to hire an individual directly rather than go through the company with which it had contracted to provide custodial service for the Barren County Courthouse, the costs for which are reimbursed by the Kentucky Administrative Office of the Courts.
Alisa Finn was approved as the hire for a maximum of 30 hours per week at $15/hour. She had already been the one doing the work through the contracted company, and Byrd said the staff at the courthouse were in favor of hiring her.
They had not had anyone there for the past week, though, she said, so they were in dire need and that was one of the main reasons for the special meeting.
After the meeting, via phone, Byrd told Glasgow News 1 that the company had advised county officials they could not meet the terms of the contract.
According to a prior GN1 report, New Covenant had submitted the only bid to provide that service last fall, and at its October meeting, the fiscal court accepted the bid of $5,345 per month, allowing that company to continue to provide the service.
The third item on the agenda was the appointment of a new member for the board of directors overseeing the county’s special ambulance service taxing district.
Byrd said she “jumped the gun” a little on this action, as she had just received a notice of a resignation from a current member on Thursday. The board’s next regular meeting is not until April, though, so she wanted to take a little more time and talk with the remaining current members and preferred not to take a vote on that at this time.
—NOTE: Except as noted, this report was compiled after a viewing video of the meeting on the county’s YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boh6Xs2PHAw.