Washington County will share an assistant county attorney for the remainder of the fiscal year. 

The Washington County Board of Supervisors approved an agreement to share with Keokuk County through June 30, 2019. The position will be an employee of Washington County and Keokuk County will pay Washington County for the services. Washington County Attorney John Gish explained the position will spend Monday through Thursday in Washington County and Friday in Keokuk County each week. The total base range for pay including benefits is approximately $66,000 to $84,000. Gish said he’d like to add a full time assistant county attorney to his staff in the near future, “So it’ll be a slight increase, but I hope you’ll see the benefit in having additional prosecutor presence. It’s my goal really to be more aggressive in prosecuting cases, and unfortunately to do that I think we need more bodies. I keep my operational expenses at zero percent increase, and I’ll do that again for this upcoming fiscal year, so I hope you can appreciate that.”

He explained with the state budget, they only have 26 court dates for trial each year. He said they work to use resources efficiently, considering the amount of time it takes to prepare a case for trial and the number of staff members available, “So part of that is why I would like a second, part of it is just time. Historically, Washington County has never, from what I’ve looked at, never filled up all trial dates. And it’s just a matter of do we have the time, the resources, to do every single trial date. I’m hoping to get closer to filling them.” Gish tells KCII News that he wants to do the best possible work for the community and the victims. He will present that proposal for a full time assistant county attorney during the budgeting process at the beginning of the year.