By BARBARA GREEN
editor@bowienewsonline.com
Montague County Commissioners said no to the district attorney’s request to use $6,055 from the DA’s forfeiture fund to supplement the salary of a second victim assistance coordinator in her office.
Three of the commissioners said they may have given it stronger consideration if it had been presented during the budget preparation process, but they did not support it just a few weeks after that was adopted.
DA Casey Polhemus asked to supplement the salary of Cassie Smith, who recently completed training as a victim coordinator and handled her first trial. She joins Jessica Morris as the second coordinator. Polhemus said the plan has been to have Smith handle Archer County, Morris work Clay County and the two would split Montague County, along with the other regular duties.
Commissioner Bob Langford was the first to say he would have rather looked at this with the budget, even though it was coming from DA forfeiture funds. Polhemus said Smith had not completed her training at that time and had not done her first trial so she did not want to present the request prematurely.

Read the full story in the mid-week Bowie News.