QuickTake:

Christopher Parosa told county commissioners his staff is stretched thin. The commissioners are looking for ways to raise more money for both the DA's office and the Lane County Sheriff’s Office.

Lane County District Attorney Christopher Parosa worries about a mass exodus of overworked prosecutors from his office under the strain of heavy caseloads.

In a presentation to county commissioners Tuesday, Dec. 9, Parosa laid out the needs of his office, which has 24 prosecutors in its criminal division who have filed 4,840 cases in the last 12 months. Parosa’s visit with commissioners comes as Lane County officials are considering potential long-term ways to raise money for additional prosecutors and sheriff’s office patrol deputies.

The planning comes amid a widespread acknowledgement among Lane County officials that the system is frayed because of a lack of adequate resources.

“We face a potential looming crisis in our office,” Parosa told commissioners. “My staff is dramatically overworked.”

A county public-safety funding task force has recommended that commissioners consider different taxing options to generate funding of $27 million annually, with $22 million for increased rural patrol deputies and the remaining $5 million earmarked for the district attorney’s office. 

County commissioners haven’t determined what option to pursue or when such a measure could go to voters. The soonest any measure would go to the ballot would be in 2027, and a proposal could take shape as a special taxing district or a payroll tax.

For Parosa’s office, another $5 million would fund 10 more deputy district attorneys of varying experience levels, three legal secretaries, two office assistants and four victim advocates. 

The funding would also pay for personnel-related costs: computers, software, office supplies, training, increased costs, new technology and fees for experts. 

Varied challenges in office

Parosa said the advent of technology has made the work more time-consuming for prosecutors. Police body cameras are “fantastic,” he said, “but they take an inordinate amount of time to go through” footage.

“Our attorneys are now spending hours and hours that 20 years ago, when I started my career, I didn’t have to spend,” Parosa said.

Much of the office’s work is outside the courtroom: Staffers nudge law enforcement agencies for all the paperwork needed for each case, handle public records requests and serve victims. In the past year, the office worked with 3,525 victims.

Parosa said it’s “extremely time-consuming” to get information from agencies and turn it over to defense attorneys. In the court system, the district attorney’s office gets the blame for failures to hand over records in the discovery process, he said.

The strain of heavy workloads is taxing on his staff, Parosa said. At one point, 16 prosecutors left the office during an 18-month period between 2021 and 2022, he said. 

“They’re fraying,” Parosa said. “They’re fraying in a way that is very demonstrable to me.”

Due to turnover, attorneys in his office tend to be younger and early in their careers, he said. Young attorneys teaching other young attorneys how to do the job “can be an absolute nightmare for an office,” Parosa said.

Last week, the Lane County Sheriff’s Office spoke to commissioners about rural patrol needs. The sheriff’s office has just three deputies and a sergeant on duty for patrols each shift. 

The $5 million would help the prosecutors office with the increased caseloads that would result from increased patrols and help modernize the office with better technology, including for courtroom presentations to juries, Parosa said. 

Parosa said the goal for prosecutors should be to know all the facts of the case better than anyone else in the room. With his office’s current level of resources, he said, “It’s just next to impossible to be that prosecutor today.”

“You’re not asking for the moon,” Commissioner Pat Farr told Parosa.

Next year, county officials plan to do more outreach to the public.

That’s also happening in the short term: Parosa is scheduled to speak Thursday, Dec. 11, at 1:30 p.m. in the Bromley Room of the Siuslaw Public Library, 1460 Ninth St. in Florence.

Parosa will speak about the work of the district attorney’s office and the challenges it faces during the meeting, which will include time for audience questions.

The meeting is sponsored by the City Club of Florence.

Ben Botkin covers politics and policy in Lane County. He has worked as a journalist since 2003, most recently at the Oregon Capital Chronicle, where he covered justice, health and human services and documented regional efforts to combat fentanyl addiction. Botkin has worked in statehouses in Idaho, Nevada, Oklahoma and, of course, Oregon. When he's not working, you'll find him road tripping across the West, hiking or surfing along the Oregon Coast.