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Philadelphia district attorney asks City Council for targeted funding for staff, witness relocation and IT amid digital-forensics needs
Summary
District Attorney Larry Kraner told City Council he is seeking roughly $3.42 million for payroll plus $1 million for contracted victim services and $1.25 million for witness relocation in FY27, and warned an IT funding shortfall could cripple daily operations if not addressed by July.
District Attorney Larry Kraner asked Philadelphia City Council on the record to fund a limited set of priorities in the DAO's FY27 operating request, including staff payroll, victim services and witness relocation, and to avert an imminent technology funding shortfall.
Kraner said the office is requesting about $3,417,833 in class 100 funds for payroll, which he described as roughly 90% of the personnel costs the office needs to operate, plus $1 million in class 200 for nine external contracted victim-service providers and $1.25 million to continue the DAO's witness-relocation program. "The 3,417,833 is for us. It's for payroll," Kraner said, adding that the other two amounts are routed to community providers and relocation assistance.
Kraner framed the request as narrowly tailored to what the office "absolutely need[s]" to continue current operations and to sustain grant awards that the DAO channels into communities for summer programming and violence-prevention work. He told council the DAO will shortly announce nearly $500,000 in grant awards for summer youth programs and said the broader violence-prevention grant program has delivered about $7.5 million to community organizations since May 2021.
Beyond personnel and service funding, the DA warned of a looming operational risk tied to software licensing and other sustainment costs. David Benson, the DAO's director of finance and IT, told the committee the office faces a July "cliff" if it does not secure funding for Microsoft licensing and other essential sustainment; he said $285,000 in ongoing sustainment is part of the FY27 request. "If we don't have funding by the time we get to that cliff we're all going to go over," Kraner said, describing scenarios in which email, digital discovery systems and courtroom tools could be degraded.
Council members asked for clarifying materials and service-level information the DAO could share with constituent offices. Assistant director Amanda Rivera said the community-engagement unit regularly works with schools and seniors and agreed to provide council with a one-page summary of services and open grant opportunities.
The hearing record shows Kraner asked council to prioritize four areas: expanding the gun-violence task force, launching a repeat domestic-violence offender unit, funding information-technology sustainment and supporting prosecutions for crimes against seniors. Kraner said the DAO's new domestic-violence repeat-offender proposal would fund five assistant district attorneys, three higher-level detectives, one victim-witness coordinator and a paralegal to allow experienced prosecutors to take cases vertically from charging through disposition.
The committee recessed at the end of the hearing; council later moved to reconvene on May 5, 2026. The DAO and council members agreed to follow up with budget details and performance metrics for the task force, the IT sustainment request, and the proposed repeat domestic-violence offender unit.
