By GINA KINSLOW
Glasgow Daily Times
GLASGOW
May 31, 2007 01:23 pm
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Metcalfe County magistrates were asked Tuesday to write letters to congressmen in support of the Elizabethtown Airport Board Airline Service Restoration Project and to request continuation of inmates’ health benefits during their incarceration.
Magistrates adopted a resolution stating they supported the restoration of competitively priced jet airline service at the Elizabethtown Regional Airport.
Restoring airline service at the Elizabethtown airport will help promote economic growth and make it more convenient to catch a regional flight. Instead of traveling to Louisville or Nashville to catch such a flight, people can go to Elizabethtown to catch those flights, said Vickie Stephens, fiscal court clerk.
As for writing letters to state and federal legislators requesting the continuation of health benefits for inmates, magistrates are hoping to ease the financial burden placed on Metcalfe County and other Kentucky counties that are forced to pick up the tab when inmates need to go to a dentist or doctor while incarcerated.
The discontinuation of inmates’ health benefits at the time they are incarcerated was originally meant to be a form of punishment for the inmates and their families, but Stephens said it has a two-fold purpose.
“It punishes the counties. So, it kind of hits us close to home,” Stephens said.
The National Association of Counties is urging all counties to ban together and create legislation to get the rule reversed so counties will not be forced to pay inmates’ health care costs.
In other business, magistrates voted to:
• approve the Metcalfe County Public Library 2007-08 proposed budget in the amount of $343,240;
• approve the second reading of the 2007-08 Metcalfe County Fiscal Court budget in the amount of $7,961,448.54;
• approve sheriff and county court clerk’s 2007 budget line items as presented; and
• adopt a resolution regarding illegal open dump remediation grant program; county to match grant up to 25 percent.
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