The Washington County Commission met with members of the Ohio Public Defenders to discuss the judiciary budget after making changes to the prosecutor’s funds. (Photo by Amber Phipps)

After a continued discussion between the Washington County Commission and the county prosecutor’s office to appropriate funding to support salary increases and new hires, a decision was made on the funding request Thursday during the commission’s regular meeting.

The proposed prosecutor fund totals $123,500 which will provide currently employed prosecutors with a mid-year raise of roughly $12,000.

“The ask is $80,000 for a new hire, $48,000 which is 12 times 4 for the full-time assistant prosecuting attorneys and $9,000 for the 32-hour week assistant prosecuting attorney,” said Commission President Charlie Schilling.

The commissioners have reviewed information in regards to making this appropriation approval and recognized the county prosecutor’s hard work and dedication to lengthy trials and an increase in case loads.

“The number of prosecutors has not doubled, so they’re doing double the work,” said Common Pleas Judge John Halliday. “They’re dedicated to the public and they need to be compensated.”

Halliday said that not only have case loads increased but the cases are a lot more challenging due to the amount of evidence and content there is to sort through in the modern age.

Prosecutors are spending more time on each case due to body-cam footage, cell phone records and technology that wasn’t around before. Each case includes an influx of more evidence and there are even more cases than ever before, according to Halliday.

In regards to the salary raises for the current prosecutors, Halliday remarked about how surrounding counties are offering higher, more competitive wages.

The prosecutor’s office has experienced difficulty finding a new hire due to the wage gap between what is being offered in Washington County in comparison to adjacent counties.

“If you want someone to move here you have to make it attractive,” Halliday said.

The approved funding will support the new hire candidate that the prosecutor’s office has had an eye on for a few months.

“I have talked to a lot of county commissioners about this and to try to find that balance, and I think this does create that balance,” said Schilling. “We have raised their salaries up quite a bit over the last four years but still not where we need to be and I think this will really bring us to that point.”

After the main public meeting, members of the Office of the Ohio Public Defender spoke with commissioners about the potential effects of the prosecutors’ raise and their own operational and financial needs. The group said Friday they did not object to the pay increase and have supported similar measures in the past.

“We understand the challenges you all are facing when trying to find additional funds for a prosecutor,” said Public Defender Elizabeth Miller. “We want to make sure that we also have a firm understanding that hiring another prosecutor will necessarily impact our budget because it’ll result in more cases coming.”

Similarly to the Washington County Prosecutor’s Office, the public defenders had comments about workload increase and salary compensation. As the public defenders and the commissioners discussed financial concerns, Schilling reassured them that their concerns are being heard.

“I appreciate the CCAO (County Commissioners Association of Ohio) working on that but as a Washington County commissioner, my first priority has to be to the residents of this county,” said Commissioner James Booth.