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Attorney General urges funding for analysts as ICAC tips surge toward 100,000
Summary
Attorney General told the House Appropriations Committee that reports to the state’s Internet Crimes Against Children unit have grown from under 1,000 to an expected 100,000 this year and asked to convert roughly 45 wage roles to permanent positions and to raise expenditure authority to hire analysts and expand outreach and mental-health supports.
Attorney General (name provided in the transcript as the officeholder) told the House Appropriations Committee on March 9 that the volume of Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) tips reaching the state has grown exponentially and that the Department of Justice needs new permanent staff and broader expenditure authority to respond.
"I was shocked to see that our ICAC funding is only about $450,000," the Attorney General said, and described a rise in referrals from fewer than 1,000 tips a year several years ago to more than 30,000 last year and an extrapolated 100,000 tips in the current year. She said the state’s ICAC effort has expanded partnerships from roughly eight local partners to about 80, but that investigative and analytic capacity has not kept pace.
The request before the committee is largely twofold: convert about 45 existing wage positions to permanent table-of-organization posts and increase the department’s expenditure authority so the office can hire additional analysts and fund outreach, training and technology to triage and investigate tips.
Why it matters: The Attorney General framed the staffing need as essential to prioritizing tips that indicate hands-on offending and to providing early intervention and mental-health supports to children exposed to sexual exploitation online. She tied the request to other elements of the office’s FY27 budget presentation, noting personnel services are the largest category in the Department of Justice proposal.
Details and proposals: The Attorney General said three of the 45 positions requested would be outreach roles tied to recently passed legislation; the remainder are principally investigative and prosecutorial positions for criminal work. She asked the committee to increase the cap on the legal support fund and to grant additional expenditure authority so recovered funds and federal grants can be used to sustain operations.
On partnerships and outreach, the Attorney General described an outreach model that used student athletes as messengers in anti-vaping campaigns and said she wanted to adapt that model for mental-health outreach in schools. She also described working with local law enforcement to create regional ICAC centers and cited the example of a dedicated ICAC space created in Kenner for the New Orleans metropolitan area.
Committee reaction: Multiple members pressed the Attorney General for details about caseloads per prosecutor, program funding and the mix of federal vs. state dollars for ICAC and Medicaid-fraud units. Representative DeWitt asked how many cases are handled per prosecutor; the Attorney General estimated roughly 60–80 cases per prosecutor in the New Orleans docket and called those numbers "high." Representative Kerner and others described personal concerns about exploitation and supported the staffing increases; Vice Chairman Zerain and Representative Coates emphasized the need for clearer oversight and technology to manage large data volumes.
What comes next: The Attorney General said she would provide additional data on caseload composition and on the number of juvenile cases in the ICAC-related docket. The committee will consider the FY27 appropriation requests during the budget process.
Ending: The committee moved on to the judiciary budget after the exchange with the Attorney General.
