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Commonwealth's attorney tells supervisors office needs dozens more staff to meet caseloads
Summary
Elected Commonwealth's Attorney Amy Ashworth briefed the board on staffing added since 2024, the office's use of a statewide time study to justify more positions and continuing shortfalls in attorneys, paralegals and administrative staff; she emphasized discovery backlog and juvenile-court staffing as urgent operational problems.
Amy Ashworth, the elected Commonwealth's Attorney for Prince William County and the cities of Manassas and Manassas Park, briefed the Board of Supervisors on April 15 about the office's recent hires, casework, and continuing staffing shortfalls following a statewide time study.
Ashworth told the board the office added 12 full-time employees in the past year (including five attorneys and several administrative staff) and has used that new staff to expand specialized units such as the Special Victims Unit and Special Investigations Unit. She described several recent high-profile prosecution outcomes, including murder convictions tied to gang activity and convictions in child and sexual-assault cases.
Ashworth said a time study conducted through the National Center for State Courts and used by the state Compensation Board indicates Prince William County should have a substantially larger staff: the latest study figures recommend 61 attorneys, 12 paralegals and 25 administrative staff to match 2024 caseloads and case complexity. The county has not reached that level; with the compensation board's recent allocations and the county's budget actions she said the office will still be short by roughly eight attorneys, three paralegals and seven administrative staff (about 18 positions short overall) for the work in 2024.
Ashworth highlighted several operational pressures she said are driving the need for more staff: a discovery-processing backlog tied to body-worn camera footage, redactions and voluminous digital evidence; increased juvenile-court courtroom time after a new judge and more courtrooms; and attorney burnout and turnover as prosecutors leave for jurisdictions with lower caseloads or for federal jobs. She said her office has a team of paralegals dedicated to discovery but the demand exceeds capacity, leading to court continuances and scheduling problems when discovery is not ready within judges' deadlines.
She also described several priorities if additional state-funded positions become available: more attorneys and paralegals for juvenile, domestic-violence and special-investigations units; a civil attorney to handle expungements, civil commitments and Freedom of Information Act requests; and additional administrative and IT support to use case-management systems more efficiently.
Board members asked about turnover and the connections between increased police staffing and prosecutor caseloads, and they discussed the March job fair and the office's intern program as a recruitment pipeline. Ashworth said two of the three line attorneys hired last year had been prior interns and that the office has been using funding from the state compensation board to add several positions, but that the compensation-board allocations have not yet closed the gap to the time-study recommendations.
Ending Ashworth left the board with a request that the county continue to pursue available state compensation positions, and to look for local budget options to add paralegals, administrative staff and targeted attorneys to reduce discovery delays and courtroom backlogs.
