The Dawson County Board of Commissioners held the first of two public hearings last week on the proposed 2017 county budget. During the hearing, District Attorney Lee Darragh asked for an additional $14,520 from the county so that his office could hire a staff member with funding from VOCA, or the Victims of Crime Act, for the county. Darragh said that the money would be part of a local matching grant from the federal government, which would give the county $58,080 to go towards hiring the new employee so long as the county supplied the additional amount.