(Spirit Lake)– The Dickinson county board of supervisors Tuesday approved a request from County Attorney Rosalise Olson to apply for a 10-thousand dollar matching grant. Olson says the grant is through the Governor’s Office of Drug Enforcement. She says it would supplement a raise for John Martin, an assistant in her office. Olson says an extremely heavy caseload has Martin turning down cases in his private practice, and that’s costing him money. She fears he may quit unless he gets a raise. The county’s share of the matching grant would be 10 percent…or a thousand dollars…if it’s awarded the grant. That would be in addition to another 650-dollars it will cost the county to write the grant.
The supervisors voted four-to-nothing to grant Olson’s request to apply for the grant. Supervisor Pam Jordan was unable to attend Tuesday’s meeting.
Olson also requested an additional assistant be hired for the office, siting the soaring caseload. She estimates it would cost the county an additional 46-thousand dollars a year. Olson says that person would prosecute all indictable traffic offenses.
To put the county’s caseload into perspective, Olson says only one other county in the 16-county judicial district of northwest Iowa has a higher caseload than Dickinson–that’s Woodbury county.
The supervisors took the request for an additional staff member under advisement.
