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Attorney General urges seat on prosecution coordination commission and requests building renovation funds
Summary
The attorney general told the Senate subcommittee the office should be a voting member of the Commission on Prosecution Coordination and described a multiyear facility-renovation request tied to consolidation of the office’s multiple buildings.
The attorney general asked the Senate oversight subcommittee to consider two structural matters: adding the attorney general as a member of the Commission on Prosecution Coordination, and approving additional capital funding to renovate state office space currently occupied across three buildings.
Both requests are relevant to budget and governance decisions the General Assembly controls: membership on the prosecution commission would affect how solicitors and statewide prosecutors coordinate funding and operations; renovation funding would affect capital outlays and long-term occupancy of state-owned buildings.
The attorney general argued the office should be on the Commission on Prosecution Coordination because he serves, in practice, as an "at-large" or seventeenth solicitor who prosecutes cases across the state's circuits and handles appeals and post-conviction relief for solicitors. He told the subcommittee that the commission was created in 1990 to coordinate prosecution funding and training but that the attorney general is not currently a voting member; he said his presence would improve coordination when solicitors request funding or when the state must backfill rural counties.
On facilities, the attorney general described the Attorney General's Office occupying three separate buildings and detailed existing funding and additional requests. He said the office currently occupies parts of the Dennis (Dentist) Building, the Brown Building and the Truest Building; the Dennis Building has seven floors and he described some floors as 80 years old. He said the General Assembly previously appropriated $15 million for renovations and that the office has requested an additional $20 million. He summarized an architectural study that estimates $11 million to $13 million per floor to fully renovate and estimated a total project cost of roughly $40 million to $50 million to modernize and consolidate AG functions in the Dennis Building.
The attorney general said he was not pressing to tear down buildings but asked the subcommittee to consider renovation funding in light of building conditions and the state's broader facilities planning. The presentation did not include formal action or a committee vote; it was presented as part of the oversight review and may inform future budget deliberations.
