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State's attorney asks county to increase assistant prosecutors' pay to match public defender office
Summary
State's Attorney Larson presented a personnel request asking the county to raise assistant state's attorney salaries by $32,775.50 total to achieve parity with the circuit public defender's office and address turnover; the board agreed to hold the personnel decision until next month.
State's Attorney Larson asked the Court Services Committee on Aug. 13, 2025, to approve a personnel request that would raise assistant state's attorney pay roughly $32,775.50 in total to bring salaries into parity with the circuit public defender's office and to reduce staff turnover. Larson told the committee his office has been understaffed and losing attorneys to both private practice and the public defender's office.
Larson said the request was calculated by dividing the public defender office's assistant public defender salary line by four positions and comparing that per-position figure with the county's assistant state's attorney line divided by six positions; the difference multiplied by six produced the $32,775.50 figure. "We're just looking for parity," Larson said.
Larson told the committee that turnover has resulted in multiple departures, including employees who nearly doubled pay when moving to the public defender's office. He said the office expects to return unspent funds at year end because it has been short-staffed and therefore underspent in some lines despite one overrun in appellate-prosecutor fees, which rose from $18,000 to $21,000.
Board members asked for comparables. Larson cited the Lee and Ogle county budgets to illustrate differences in how other counties present salary and benefit line items; he said those higher-level totals are not strictly comparable because other counties include IMRF and health insurance in different lines. Committee members asked for additional detail on the number of assistant prosecutors in neighboring counties and on the percentage increase represented by the request; Larson responded the package equates to roughly an 11% increase over the department request numbers and said he would provide details to staff for the personnel packet.
The committee did not approve the personnel request at the meeting. Members said they wanted time to review the formal personnel request and the supporting comparables. The request was held over for action at the next meeting with the expectation the personnel form and supporting documentation would be provided to finance and the board before that vote.
Larson also flagged that one salary increase (his own) had been adjusted previously by the board and that the appellate-prosecutor fee increase to $21,000 had already been reflected in the year-to-date expenditures.
No formal vote was taken on the pay adjustment itself; committee members agreed to postpone the personnel decision to the following month so staff could assemble the formal personnel packet and comparables for review.
