Camden County DA Seeks Major Staffing Increase as Commissioners Question Funding and Oversight

District Attorney Keith Higgins asked the Camden County Board of Commissioners at a special called work session for fiscal-year 2026 funding to expand his office, saying additional prosecutors and support staff are needed to reduce a backlog of cases and prosecute violent crimes.

Higgins told the commission he seeks four additional assistant district attorneys, three investigators, two legal assistants, two victim-witness advocates and an intake clerk, plus county-funded supplements for certain positions and a proportional share of circuit-level staff costs. “We enforce the law by prosecuting crimes when there's sufficient evidence to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” Higgins said, describing prosecution as one prong of public safety that must be funded alongside policing.

The request surfaced multiple budget and oversight questions. Commissioners asked where previously approved positions and money went, why the DA office was not receiving monthly disbursements, and whether asset-forfeiture or ARPA funds had been used. Higgins said some positions are state-paid, that ARPA funds distributed through the Administrative Office of Courts funded certain temporary hires (and that those funds expired), and that asset-forfeiture money is legally limited to capital items and certain supplements and therefore could not be used to hire ongoing county staff.

Higgins said Camden County currently has four ADA positions on paper but only one fully county-paid prosecutor; three are state-paid or otherwise funded. He said Camden County’s share of costs for several circuit employees should be calculated on general revenue (he cited Camden’s share as about 22.8%) rather than on population. He asked the commission to budget a $10,000 annual supplement per county-paid ADA to help recruit and retain experienced prosecutors and suggested vehicle support would be roughly $3,000 per year per ADA.

Deputy Chief Assistant District Attorney Hal Moroz, who is based in Camden, urged funding on public-safety grounds and emphasized case prioritization. “I am responsible for the prosecutions here in this County. I need that,” Moroz said, describing prosecutions of murders and other violent felonies he and the office are handling and arguing that serious cases require staff capacity even if misdemeanor dispositions fall.

Higgins and staff presented metrics drawn from the Clerk of Court and internal records: roughly 3,000 open cases countywide; a reported caseload of about 746 cases per ADA under current staffing; a cited national average caseload of about 176 per prosecutor and a comparison of 350 per ADA in the Atlantic Judicial Circuit; and more than 5,200 victims served by the office over four years (about 4,300 victims of violent crime). Higgins said the office has a better-than-99 percent conviction rate for the cases it pursues and that the office has become more selective in indicting so it prosecutes only cases it believes it can prove.

Commissioners pressed details and documentation repeatedly. Commissioner Casey asked, “Where's the other two?” after Higgins said the county had previously approved multiple positions. Higgins and Boatwright (County Administrator Sean Boatwright) disagreed in places about which positions were county-funded, which were ARPA-funded, and about when ARPA funds expired; Higgins said an intake clerk paid by ARPA was lost when the grant ended and that Camden County did not later pick up that cost.

Boatwright said county payroll is now dispersed directly to employees rather than routed through the DA’s office, and he warned commissioners to budget conservatively. He told the board that if positions are authorized they should be tied to payroll controls and HR position-control processes to prevent money from being used for other purposes. Higgins responded that direct payroll dispersal is one safeguard and that any hiring would occur only into positions the county authorizes.

On funding sources, Higgins said asset-forfeiture balances are lower than public rumor suggests (he estimated roughly $900,000 at one point) and that forfeiture funds are restricted by law; they cannot be used to hire full-time county personnel except in narrowly prescribed ways (for example, supplements for state-paid personnel). He also said about $40,000 remains outstanding to the DA office and that current disbursements have been credited toward medical costs for an employee, which has affected monthly payments to the office.

Commissioners and staff described other steps underway: the counties in the circuit have commissioned an audit of the DA's office (Boatwright said an audit arrangement with other circuit counties is ongoing), the DA’s office is preparing an intergovernmental agreement for the intake clerk position that the commission would have to approve, and Boatwright said budget staff will work with the DA’s office and the commission’s budget committee on trimming or adjusting the request. The county administrator told commissioners the county is about $3.35 million short of balancing all departments’ requests for the coming fiscal year without tapping fund balance or raising taxes.

No vote on Higgins’s FY2026 request occurred at the session. Commissioners agreed to take the materials under consideration and directed further review and budget discussions. The meeting ended after the board agreed to continue work with budget staff and to consider a fuller review at a regular meeting.

For follow-up: the commission will review the DA’s staffing proposals and the draft intergovernmental agreement for the intake clerk; the inter-county audit continues; and budget committee meetings were offered by Higgins and county staff to refine the request and identify potential trims or alternatives.