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County approves salary-setting resolution for digital forensic investigator in DA’s office
Summary
The Administrative Services Committee approved a resolution setting the civil service grade and scheduling salary for the county's digital forensic investigator, a position filled this year by Cody Willett and assigned to the District Attorney's office to handle electronic evidence extraction and authentication work.
The Chautauqua County Administrative Services Committee on Sept. 15 voted to approve a resolution setting the salary/grade for a newly created digital forensic investigator position housed in the District Attorney’s office.
Jason Schmidt, District Attorney, described the role and background of the employee the office hired. “We had been working for a while to acquire Cody Willett,” Schmidt said, and explained that Willett previously worked in the sheriff’s office and IT assignments. Schmidt said the county worked with human resources to create a duties statement and to place the new position within the civil service structure, identifying it with a higher‑level discovery facilitator classification and a corresponding grade (referred to in the discussion as grade 25).
Schmidt said the employee performs technical extractions and evidence preservation tasks — including work with Cellebrite forensic tools — and helps prepare video and electronic files for authentication in criminal proceedings. “He’s a certified Cellebrite technician,” Schmidt said, and the duties differ from prior IT assignments.
Committee members asked whether the sheriff’s office would need to replace the work Willett had been doing there; Schmidt said the sheriff’s office had already reassigned those duties before the transfer. He said the DA’s office expects the hire to be budget neutral for the remainder of 2025 given current vacancies and that the department has planned for the position in the 2026 budget submission.
The committee approved the proposed salary resolution by voice vote; the transcript records the vote as “aye” and carried without a roll‑call tally.
The committee did not record a detailed public discussion of the salary amount in the transcript; the committee directed no additional actions at the meeting beyond approving the resolution.
