Washington County prosecutor asks for investigator, warns removal of three county-funded deputies would slow court progress

The Washington County prosecuting attorney told the county Financial Budget Committee on Sept. 9 that the office is seeking funds for a full-time investigator and several staffing regrades in the 2026 budget.

The prosecutor said the investigator position, budgeted at a base salary of about $65,000 plus roughly $6,000 in ancillary costs, would handle subpoena service, witness location, evidence transport to crime labs and coordination in multi-agency cases. "Having an investigator on staff would alleviate a lot of responsibilities of law enforcement agencies that I could handle in-house," the prosecutor said.

The prosecutor framed the request as a response to an "accelerated docket" that has increased case throughput. He said the office closed 3,420 felony cases in 2024 and was on pace to close approximately 4,500 felony cases in 2025. That higher pace, he said, requires more operational funding and dedicated investigative support. He asked the court to increase the office's non-salary operations budget by about $43,770 (roughly 21% of the operations line) to cover litigation-related expenses and contract-driven increases.

The budget request also includes an 8.1% salary increase to implement human-resources-recommended regrades for paralegals, the office administrator (described as chief-of-staff-level duties) and the restitution coordinator, and to properly fund part-time law clerk hours.

A central focus of the discussion was three deputy prosecutor positions that Washington County currently funds. The prosecutor said those three positions account for about 16.8% of his office's personnel costs and that two of the positions "must" remain county-funded if the office is to continue handling family-in-need-of-services and juvenile dockets without disruption. He reviewed scenarios in which removing the three county-funded deputies would require moving prosecutors from the busiest criminal division (Division 7) and would displace hundreds of felony cases.

"If I eliminate three deputy prosecutors from division 7, I've displaced 750 criminal cases," the prosecutor said, adding that such a reduction would slow case processing and could reverse recent progress reducing the jail backlog.

Committee members pressed for more detail about how the county-funded positions interact with state-funded positions and whether the state could absorb those roles in future legislative sessions. The prosecutor said the shift of deputy prosecutors to state pay began in 1999 and that a small number of pre-1999 positions remain "grandfathered," reimbursed at historic rates; he said obtaining new state-funded positions would likely be a multi-session effort and would not be a quick fix.

Committee members asked comptroller staff to reconcile differences between the prosecutor's personnel-percent figures and committee packet numbers; comptroller staff said updated figures reflecting recent regrades would be distributed.

Ending: The committee received the prosecutor's presentation and asked staff to supply updated budget detail; no final appropriation or vote on the prosecutor's requests occurred at this meeting.