Adams commissioners reviewing 2024 budget

RITZVILLE — Adams County Commissioners held their second public hearing on the 2024 budget during Tuesday’s regular meeting in Ritzville, which also featured input from staff, the primary portion being input from the Adams County Prosecutor’s Office. 

County Prosecuting Attorney Randy Flyckt introduced the subject of the department’s salary schedule and pay adjustments to keep the county’s wages competitive.

“It is absolutely imperative and should be a matter of top priority to address this issue at this current time, due to market conditions around the state. We have discussed before that attorney salaries and costs have increased substantially, and in some counties even increased by twice the amount of what they were just several years ago,” Flyckt said, “and if we don't stay at least within the market we are standing on the precipice of going about a process where we're going to see the degrading of the effectiveness of the prosecutor's office in Adams County …that, in turn, shortchanges the services that we ultimately supply to the public, as well as undermines the future marketability, and economic potential of the county.”

Chief Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Peter Palubicki elaborated on the issue. 

“These are turbulent times in the criminal justice system, and yes, while the pressing need is to hire a chief, we can't forget about the people that we already have and being able to attract quality candidates in the future,” he said. “If an Okanagan prosecutor, Benton County prosecutor, Franklin or Grant County prosecutor is looking at our office right now, they, on average, would make $13,000 more staying in their felony-level prosecuting jobs at the top end than becoming the chief here, getting more serious cases, a lot more stress for a lot less money.”

Palubicki also touched on the difference of experience between new prosecutors and public defenders. 

“Another consideration is, right now, in the criminal division of the Prosecutor's Office, the average experience is five years, five years of practice. But if you look at our public defenders, their average experience is 18 years,” Palubicki said. “On average 18 years of experience going up against someone with on average five years of experience. And if we don't keep the prosecutors that we have, we're going to be forced to hire brand new graduates out of law school, then they're going to be going up against extremely experienced attorneys, and we're going to start getting bad outcomes.”

Palubicki said a market adjustment for salaries is very necessary. 

“It's only $90,000, and that's not an insignificant sum, but it's a fraction of some of the numbers we saw up here,” Palubicki said of the county’s budget items. “I'm not going to say … that money is not necessary, or those departments aren't as important, but what are we going to tell people when we started getting bad outcomes in cases? And we're like, ‘Well, we tried to fully fund this office, we were trying to get really experienced people, and it was $90,000, but we didn't get the funds, so I'm sorry, we didn't get justice in this case.’ Those are going to be really difficult conversations to have.”

Flyckt was optimistic about the county’s ability to absorb the cost. 

“Peter and I very much realize this is a very lean year, from a fiscal standpoint for budgeting purposes, and we are familiar with county funds and what's doable and what isn't doable. But I do want to suggest to you that even though this might sting a little bit, I think this is every bit affordable. I think we will be able to sustain it in the future. We've got some good, positive news on the horizon for a couple of years in the future on county revenues and I realize this cycle may be a little bit of a rainy day, but I think we can fund this.”

The commissioners did not comment on the matter, as it was during the public hearing, but Flyckt later brought another budget concern of his to the commissioners’ attention. Flyckt asked why an attorney position in the department that had traditionally been fully funded by the county using a percentage of sales tax was only receiving a portion of the costs necessary to cover salary and benefits. 

Commissioners Jay R. Weise and Dan Blankenship explained that they had switched from their predecessor’s method of fully funding positions to allocating percentages of the sales tax to specific positions, in this case about 13%

“The salaries outran the ability of the tax to keep pace,” Blankenship said. 

The commissioners said the allocations were also supposed to help the department fund projects down the road if need be. 

“I mean, you're the legislative authority, you can do what you want,” Flyckt said. “I just think that 13% of this overall funding going to support the prosecutor's office is too little.”

Weise explained the issue in greater detail.

“Today, that fund cannot support 100% on all of those positions … (this attempt) was trying to get us into position when there was a criminal justice expense that came up later for a project we would be able to fund it.”

The commissioners tabled their action on the 2024 budget for the following week. 

Gabriel Davis may be reached at gdavis@columbiabasinherald.com. Download the Columbia Basin Herald app on iOS and Android.

    Exterior photo of the Adams County Courthouse, which houses the Adams County Prosecutor’s Office as well as the regular Adams County Commissioner’s meetings.