At last week’s meeting of the Lawrence County Commission, officials learned of a major benefit to the county.

Auditor Jason Stephens was on hand to discuss prisoner medical expenses. He said, at the request of Commissioner Colton Copley, who took office in 2018, his staff, working with the sheriff’s office and the commission, had conducted a review of the medicals costs.

Stephens said that they were able to determine much the expense was for items that should have been billed under the Medicaid rate or were bills for individuals not in custody.

As a result, the county was able to save $450,000 on a $512,000 bill, bringing the bill current.

We thank all involved, who helped eliminate a major burden that the county was facing and to provide an example to follow going forward to keep costs down.

As many in the room testified, the effort was the result of cooperation between the staffs of the three government offices in the county.

It is good to see that so many are working for the benefit of our county and its taxpayers and we hope this can be expanded to other areas.