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County Attorney Martin Hatfield, left, and Magistrate Mark Ranshaw presented three city-county interlocal agreements at Tuesday s meeting of Pulaski County Fiscal Court.
Since at least last December, Pulaski County Fiscal Court had been discussing the need to meet with officials from the City of Somerset in order to renew several interlocal agreements.
That meeting recently took place to the apparent satisfaction of all parties involved. Following a brief executive session to discuss property near the end of Tuesday s regular meeting, magistrates reconvened in open session to approve three interlocal agreements which will now be submitted to the Somerset City Council for consideration.
Pulaski County Attorney Martin Hatfield
Last week, Governor Andy Beshear signed into law a bill aimed at lowering prison populations by increasing the felony theft threshold for the first time in more than a decade.
Gov. Beshear signed the legislation on March 22. A correctional impact statement attached to the bill estimated its passage would save the state $4 million per year in prison costs alone.
Sponsored by Representative Ed Massey (R-Hebron), the House Chair of the Judiciary Committee, House Bill 126 raises the felony theft threshold from $500 to $1,000. Under current law, stealing anything worth $500 or more is a felony punishable by up to five years in prison. It additionally increases the threshold for several fraud-related crimes to $1,000 some of which currently have amounts as low as $100 for the offense to be a felony and allow police to charge members of organized shoplifting rings with a felony if a member stole a total of $1,000 worth of merchandise over 90 da