Kane State’s Attorney seeks $2.7M budget bump to increase pay, hire more attorneys

KANE COUNTY – Kane County State’s Attorney Jamie Mosser has proposed a $2.7 million budget increase to pay for a revamp of her department, encompassing pay increases, more attorneys, as well as creating new specialized units.

Mosser presented seven resolutions at Thursday’s Judicial and Public Safety Committee meeting and spoke about it again during Friday’s media briefing. Her full presentation is available at www.countyofkane.org.

“We asked for a significant increase in our budget,” Mosser said. “We asked for additional attorneys and support staff and advocates to staff our domestic violence courtroom – which cases went up. Abuse and neglect – which cases went up. And our drug cases as well. Because we really need to be able to focus on these because the alarming trends just continue to go up, even when we’re shut down because of the pandemic.”

Her seven resolutions were:

1. Increase salaries

2. Increase domestic violence and abuse and neglect units

3. Create a mental health unit

4. Create a felony review unit

5. Increase the narcotics unit

6. Create a prosecution integrity unit

7. Create community-based programs

The resolutions were tabled until the next Judicial and Public Safety Committee meeting March 11 where judicial partners will participate in detailing their need for increased funding.

“If I need more attorneys, the Public Defender’s Office also needs more attorneys because we work so much in lock-step,” Mosser said. “While we have all of the criminal cases and they have 85% of the criminal cases, it still means that they have a need.”

Mosser said the same need also applies to the judiciary and court system.

“When we have that many abuse and neglect cases and just one judge hearing them, you really need to have two in order to be able to hear all of this,” Mosser said.

“We started the process by putting out what we’re looking for. We’re also looking for alternative forms of funding that includes grants,” Mosser said. “And then we will be meeting with … the judges, with (Chief) Judge (Clint) Hull, with Rachele Conant from the (Public Defender’s) Office, Probation, to get a judicial partners’ proposal for how we need to increase everything, essentially, in the criminal justice system.”

At Thursday’s committee meeting, Mosser’s presentation made clear “the sheer amount of work attorneys, support staff, advocates and case managers have done not only during the pandemic, but over the years, as they’ve had to work more with less.”

Civil Division attorneys have taken on more work during the pandemic, even assisting the Criminal Division for issues such as forfeitures, mental health cases, Mosser said.

In the case of the county’s three branch courts in Elgin, Aurora and St. Charles, they have one assistant state’s attorney and one second-year law student under that lawyer’s supervision, Mosser said.

“There is a lot of work and pressure on the one person who is an attorney in that branch court,” Mosser said. “These are staffing issues that we’ve seen over the years that – that’s the only thing that we can do in regards to that division.”

So far, they’ve been able to create a position of supervisor over the branch court who goes to a different branch each week to provide intense supervision, she said.

Kane County Sheriff Ron Hain shared $115,000 from his budget so that Mosser can afford to have a chief of the criminal division.

Certain crimes have been increasing the workload because attorneys need to review the volume of body camera videos, squad car videos, surveillance, cell phone footage and jail recordings, she said.

“It’s not just reviewing a police report or a 911 recording any longer,” Mosser said.

“Frankly, we also need to change the way we look at prosecuting cases. There’s a significant amount of people who come into our system because of mental health issues, addiction issues, lack of resources, and frankly sometimes just making really dumb decisions,” Mosser said.

“We need to make sure to look at those people for diversion for deferred prosecution, for help instead of necessarily putting them through the criminal justice system – and that takes a lot of training. That takes a lot of ability to look at a case and review it in a different way.”

She recommended a $6,000 pay increase for all support staff, advocates, case mangers and investigators and an increase of 5% for attorneys.

She said it still makes Kane’s salaries lower when compared to other counties, but would make “a world of difference for employees.”

“People who work here do it because they are dedicated to this mission,” Mosser said. “But it doesn’t mean we can continue to underpay them in the way that we have, and frankly, we would lose people.”

Board member Kenneth Shepro, R-Wayne, said board members should know more about what these divisions do and what the changes would be as recommended by Mosser.

“At the end of the day … where is the money going to come from?” Shepro asked. “Not only do we have to deal with the State’s Attorney, but all the other people who report to this committee and all other functions of county government. And when you’re looking at a finite pot of money, when you give something for a new program or an office, it’s got to come out of somebody else’s.”

Board member David Brown, R-Batavia, said it was obvious that Mosser has the support of the board.

“Again, the big question is where does the money come from?” Brown said.

He described issues in private industry where a person leaves and hiring a replacement will have to be paid more, break them in and train them – also a cost.

“I think it’s really important that we stay in tune with what the competitive number is in the industry,” Brown said.