State's Attorney asks for seven new staff positions as office struggles with overtime and records backlog

The State's Attorney (speaker 8) presented five budgets and outlined a staffing proposal that would add seven positions to the office payroll as part of a multi-year plan to address case-processing bottlenecks.

Speaking to commissioners, the State's Attorney said two of the seven positions belong in the victim-witness budget and the rest in the main budget. She described operational problems—long ingestion times between law enforcement reports and attorney review, heavy use of temps, and high overtime in support lines—and said the personnel request (totaling roughly $856,801 as presented) focuses on two office support specialists, two victim-witness coordinators, two additional attorneys and one supervisor-level support staff who would centralize training and onboarding. "We've put together a 5 year plan that will get us closer," she said, adding the office is currently about 39% below peer staffing averages for prosecutors' offices.

On asset forfeiture funds, the State's Attorney said the office has used forfeiture dollars conservatively (for training, a body scanner purchase and other targeted uses) but intends to begin shifting recurring costs to the general fund so the forfeiture fund is not rapidly depleted. She also discussed technology investments, including Axon Justice Premier, and cautioned that AI tools are useful but require verification.

Commissioners requested additional data on temp pay rates (staff provided a $25.67 hourly temp rate), open-records request hours, and the precise incremental cost for hiring two priority support roles this year; the State's Attorney said she would return with those figures for the next meeting. The commission approved a motion to move forward on several noncontroversial forfeiture/child-welfare items while reserving further decisions on the main budget and victim-witness staffing for follow-up discussion.