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At the Jessamine County Fiscal Court Meeting held on Monday, the staff of the Jessamine County Child Support Office stood at the front of the room and announced that their office had won the honor of the outstanding performance award for offices in Kentucky that have 2,000-4,000 cases.

Around 40 or 50 counties in Kentucky have the same caseload.

In Kentucky, child support workers are employees of the fiscal court, so the child support office in the county is in the office of the county attorney, Brian Goettl. In 2017, he and his staff won Child Support Office of The Year in Kentucky.

The federal government passes money to state governments to do child support enforcement. In Kentucky, the state works with the county attorney in every county to do county child support enforcement.

“The federal government judges the state performance and how much money the state gets by four separate federal ratios, so then the state looks at each of the counties to see how we’re doing in those federal ratios. We won based upon our performance in those four federal ratios,” Goettl said.

He also said that in the past 21 years, there have only been one or two times that the office’s expenditures exceeded the reimbursement to the fiscal court from the state. This is one of the reasons the office’s performance is being celebrated.

“The fiscal court is always there to make sure that we have the resources that we need,” Goettl said. “My child support workers and everyone in my office is dedicated to serving the people of Jessamine County. It’s because of the hard work that each of them do every day without any thanks. So, it was a good reward for their hard work.”

Jessamine County Judge-Executive David West called this another example of Jessamine County “ leading the way.”

In other news:

On Wednesday, November 15, from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., the Jessamine County Public Library is holding a driver’s license renewal event. Those interested must sign up for an appointment at drive.ky.gov. At this pop-up event, residents can upgrade to a REAL ID License, request an 8-year license if due for a renewal, update a name or address, and renew a CDL. Walk-ins are not available. Cash Only.