By Randall Gaylord, San Juan County Prosecuting Attorney
Critics have written that spending for legal services out of line with other counties. But reports of the State Auditor reports show your county council spends less on legal services than comparable counties, when measured as a percentage of the county budget.
Measuring spending in a prosecutor’s office as a percentage of the budget is useful because it reflects differences in county size and workload. More dollars spent means more contracts and people doing the work – people like police officers who send cases to the prosecutor.
There are nine comparable prosecutor offices that do criminal, coroner and civil work, including work required by the GMA. In 2010 these nine counties spent between 4% and 11% of the general fund on legal services, with an average of 7.6%. In San Juan County, just 5.5% of the general fund was spent on legal services. Only Douglas County with a big city population was lower.
Using this same method for the total county budget shows prosecutor spending ranged between 1.7% and 4.6%, with an average of 3.1%. In San Juan County, just 1.7% of the total budget was spent on legal services – the lowest in the state.
The people in this county rely heavily upon our legal system to resolve civil conflicts, and the prosecutor participates when required by law. Since 1995, administrative agencies reported 127 decisions in San Juan cases compared to 36 in Pacific and 23 in Douglas.
In criminal cases, deputy prosecutors handle over 2000 hearings a year including all of the work generated from the Town of Friday Harbor. Our superior court is a district unto itself with a full workload, compared to Pacific County, which is in a three-county district with just 45 percent of a full workload.
Your County Council is right to protect funding for legal services.
Prosecutor Spending as Percentage of Total Budget by County (San Juan County ranks lowest)
Prosecutor Percentage of General Fund Budget by County (San Juan County ranks second-lowest)
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What is missing from Mr. Gaylord’s analysis is the broader SJC picture. Our overall per capita spending is between 2 and 6 time that of the counties mentioned in Randy’s table. So our prosecutor consumes a smaller share of a much larger pie, meaning that prosecutorial spending can be both lower in percentage terms than comparable counties but still obscenely bloated in real, per capita dollars. Compared like so, SJC annually spends $59.84 per capita while Pacific County with far more serious crime spends $31.79 annually per capita.
Nick Jones
Nick:
Thanks again for your perceptive analysis. It has pierced the bubble of obscurity blown by the County Prosecutor. Per capita spending is the cleanest and clearest indicator of efficiency.
Other numbers can mislead, but bad numbers mislead badly.
Organizations always circle the wagons to defend their position. I believe in government but government was always the lesser choice to being in the private sector. People chose government for the security. A pension, health care, but lesser pay. Today however because of the successful suppression of private sector wages government work compared to the culture as a whole is way over paid.
Why measure as a percentage of total spending? If you have a County like ours, whose budget has ballooned over the past seven years, then your percentage of the take is meaningless. Per capita spending makes more sense as a metric here, and actually is a conservative one, in that we have residents who are not here much of the time.
P.S. Our County pay scales have been released, and it appears that we pay entry level “custodians” and “laborers” almost $40,000 per year plus up to $700 per month in health benefits plus a $3000 health savings account. (Not to mention the $10,000 increases for upper management and cost of living adjustments.) No problem, right? Don’t all of service workers get paid that much?