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For the first Jessamine County Fiscal Court meeting of the year on Friday, January 10, 2025, magistrates and Judge-Executive David West held a quick meeting. 

Quicker first-of-year housekeeping items on the docket included a motion to accept the county building rental sales tax from Kentucky. The magistrates approved the motion.

Another quick item approved includes the state tax for the animal shelter that the county collects and distributes to the state. The magistrates approved this item.

The major items on the docket included the County Clerk’s Office Annual Order setting the maximum pay for all Deputies and Assistants for the year and the Sheriff’s Office 2025 Budget and Annual Order setting the maximum pay for all deputies and assistants. 

The Sheriff’s Office and the Court and County Clerks are on a calendar year, whereas those entities’ fiscal agent, the Fiscal Court, is on a fiscal year schedule. The Fiscal Court is responsible for approving the maximum amount each agency can pay their personnel for the year, according to Judge West. “This eases that compression between the tenured employees and the new employees and creates the difference observed by most businesses and governments,” West said. Before magistrates approved this item, Sheriff Kevin Grimes described an issue due to payment compression where he had tenured deputies making the same amount or equal to people who were brought on more recently. 

With that being said, the last item was to approve the state’s advancement of the Sheriff’s Salary since it is the start of the year and neither agency is currently making a profit from taxes or services rendered, the Fiscal Court approved an advancement of the Sheriff’s salary from the state.