(The Center Square) – Victims of retail theft in King County could see a lack of legal support from the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office if proposed cuts to the officer occur in the next biennial budget.
King County is facing a projected $150 million shortfall in its general fund for the upcoming 2026-2027 budget cycle that requires major budget cuts after this year.
Earlier this year, a list of general fund target reductions was released that included a $15.5 million hit to the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.
King County Prosecuting Attorney Leesa Manion spoke to members of the King County Budget and Fiscal Management Committee on Wednesday on the possible impacts of general fund cuts. According to Manion, $15.5 million is how much is dedicated to salary and benefit costs of 90 deputy prosecuting attorneys, or more than half the office’s current staffing level.
Amid a slew of concerns Manion has if the proposed cuts go through, one includes the inability to take on repeated retail crime cases, despite demands from the business community, who are often victims of the crime.
“We currently do not have enough resources to meet the needs in our communities – I think that there are some property cases that we would have to deprioritize so that we could focus on violent crimes, sexual assault, [and] gun crimes,” Manion said during the committee meeting.
“The demands that we are seeing from our business community – because of repeated retail theft and retail crime – I think those would have to move lower down on our list of priorities. I’m not sure that we would be able to address those crimes,” she continued.
The Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce said King County should ensure its resources are sufficient enough to address public safety issues including organized retail theft.
“Funding public safety and our criminal legal system is a top priority of the voters and the business community, and it needs to be appropriately resourced to keep our communities healthy,” Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce CEO Rachel Smith said in an email to The Center Square. “We encourage county leaders to focus the resources they have on the basics and use them to make the biggest impact, for the most people, on the public safety issues that are most pervasive in our communities, including violent crime and organized retail theft.”
The Prosecuting Attorney’s Office currently has 150 criminal deputy prosecuting attorneys, each year they review an average of 10,500 criminal investigations referred to the office.
Of these 10,500 referrals, the office files roughly 5,000 adult felony cases, 2,900 adult misdemeanor cases, and 1,000 juvenile cases each year.
Manion said her attorneys have too heavy of a workload, and cuts to staff would further exacerbate the issue.
Notably, the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office’s proposed $15.5 million in cuts is $12.5 million more than the proposed cuts to the King County Department of Public Defense, which totals $3 million.
According to Manion, the King County Department of Public Defense has approximately 290 public defense attorneys compared to 150 criminal practice deputy prosecuting attorneys.
