Boyle County Clerk Trille Bottom had a pair of checks to present to the Boyle County Fiscal Court this week for excess fees collected by her office. Magistrates were much more excited about one than the other.

“First of all, I wanted to present a check for the 2015 additional excess fees in the amount of four cents,” Bottom said to loud round of laughter from magistrates and the audience at Tuesday’s meeting. “I told them to write it off and they would not do it.”

“The check cost more than that,” Magistrate Jack Hendricks joked.

Bottom then presented the court with her excess fees for 2016 — a much more substantial figure at $273,978.25.

“I’ll take that check,” Judge-Executive Harold McKinney said.

“Could you have added that four cents in there?” Hendricks asked.

“I tried — believe me,” Bottom said.

“Judge, will you care to pass that check around and let us all touch it?” Magistrate Phil Sammons asked.

The four-cent check was for additional excess fees that were determined beyond the original 2015 check Bottom gave the court last year. That 2015 check was for $248,736.50, which is about $25,000 less than this year, Bottom said.

State law requires county clerks in counties with fewer than 75,000 people to provide a financial statement for the previous calendar year to the county fiscal court no later than March 15. Along with the statement, the clerk must “pay to the fiscal court any income of his office, including income from investments, which exceeds the sum of his maximum salary as permitted by the Constitution and other reasonable expenses,” according to the law.

The law also says the settlement check is “subject to correction by audit.”

A budget form provided by Bottom shows the Boyle County Clerk’s Office had about $7.96 million in receipts and around $7.68 million in disbursements in 2016.

Magistrates voted unanimously to accept Bottoms’ checks based on an auditor’s final audit.

“Obviously, somebody is doing something right down there,” McKinney said to Bottom. “So thank you very much.”