Department of State's Attorneys and Sheriffs tells Senate committee it needs staff, IT and paralegals to reduce caseloads

Tim Lueders Guman, executive director of the Department of State's Attorneys and Sheriffs, told the Senate Government Operations Committee on Jan. 16 that the department supports 28 elected officials and a field staff spread across the state and is seeking additional personnel and technical support to handle a heavy and growing workload.

"Think about the Department of State's Attorneys and Sheriffs as the administrative department over the elected 14 state's attorneys and 14 sheriffs," the department overview said in testimony to the committee. Guman and Tracy Patnaud, the department's director of sheriffs operations, briefed the committee on structure, budgets and operational pressures.

Guman said the central office supports roughly 175 employees across four budget sections: state's attorneys, victim advocates, sheriffs and special investigation unit grants. He told the committee the department had about 23,000 pending cases as of Dec. 10 and had moved roughly 3,000 cases in the prior year. He said the average caseload was about 350 cases per prosecutor and about 600 cases per victim advocate.

The briefing identified specific capacity gaps and proposed additions: two "docket management" positions to triage pending cases, one additional IT support position to manage systems for 29 offices, approximately six victim-advocate positions, roughly six paralegal positions to process discovery and sealing/expungement work, and several deputy state's attorney positions for high-demand offices.

Guman and Patnaud described how sheriffs and state transport deputies are funded and certified. The department said there are 24 state transport deputy positions (state employees who move incarcerated people to court), who must hold at least level-2 certification from the Criminal Justice Council. The department also explained that sheriffs may hire additional private-side staff for contract work and that a statutory provision can reduce a sheriff's salary by 30% if the sheriff lacks required certification.

The briefing emphasized administrative burdens related to sealing and expungement. Guman said about 70,000 sealing and expungement orders have been processed over the past five years and that those orders create substantial follow-up work for paralegals and administrative staff, including redaction and case-file review. The department noted proposed edits to H.655 that would create a single-track sealing system intended to reduce administrative labor.

Officials also discussed a previously used "work group" or preapproval community-restoration program that helped remove many low-level, nonviolent cases from court dockets; the department said pilot projects are under way and that restoring a broader program would help case management.

On technical and logistical matters, the department said the state transport deputies operate under central office direction for staffing decisions, that per-diem payments for deputies are currently $50 an hour and that sheriffs typically provide vehicles, uniforms and equipment for contract work.

Committee members pressed on workforce retention and the scale of the caseload problem. Guman said burnout and turnover have affected staffing and that the department will present budget requests this legislative session for the positions described.

The committee also noted an executive order referred to the Government Operations Committee that would elevate the Department of Public Safety to an agency; witnesses said they expected stakeholders to testify on that order and legal questions remain about whether such a change can be effected by executive order rather than statute.

The department agreed to return to the committee to discuss specific budget requests and operational pilots. No formal committee action was taken during the Jan. 16 briefing.