TGC Commissioners Table Plan to Retain Prosecutor

District Attorney John Best with the 119th Judicial District was in Commissioners Court on Tuesday seeking permission to use Senate Bill 22 grant money to increase the salary of a seasoned prosecutor in his office who has a significant job offer in hand from Midland County.

“We are here to request the use of SB22 funds for one of our prosecutors,” he said. “As you know, we lost one of our prosecutors, Sara Reyes, to Midland County. She was one of our Attorney-IIIs that worked in our office … and one of our seasoned prosecutors, so that was a big loss, and we are still trying to fill that position.

“We have three other Attorney IIIs, one of whom is Jensen Martinez.”

Best told the court that the market for prosecutors in Texas is pretty competitive right now due to a lack of young lawyers who want to work in the field, adding that few offices are currently able to fill all of their open positions.

He also said there is quite a bit of poaching going by “aggressive district attorneys” who have been actively recruiting people in his office for some time now.

He cited Meagan Wyatt, who went to Ector County and mentioned Sara Reyes again.

“We can’t afford to lose more prosecutors right now,” he said, “We’re down to three right now.”

Best said he was asking for an amount of $4,992 monthly that would raise her salary to about $130,211 annually.

“I can tell you that (she) is committed to stay, for right now, but this other jurisdiction offered her even more money, to try and get her … so we’re trying to do the best we can for her, because we want her to stay.

“So that’s what we’re asking. It’s not going to cost the taxpayers any money. It’s not going to cost the county any money, it’s SB22 money that’s already been allocated by the state — grant money — so, that is our ask.”

On the first go-round, Tom Green County Judge Lane Carter told Best he had some questions because “SB22 money is a bit sticky” alluding to how increasing the pay of one position might trigger a cascading effect that necessitates raising everybody’s pay, and queried the DA on how this pay increase aligns with other people in the same position.

Best told Carter that the pay rise would put her salary a little above one other prosecutor, who has been in place longer than Martinez, and Carter said he thought that might cause some problems.

“This is where you get that sticky situation with SB22,” Carter said. “It’s almost like the Oprah Effect, where (we’re saying) ‘you get some money, and you get some money, and everybody gets some money.’ … Where do you all level-off at?”

Carter asked Best if he thought moving allocated money from one position to another put the open position at a disadvantage, salary-wise, and stated that he was worried “come budget session” that there will be requests to elevate salaries because of a move like this.

He then asked Best about his recruitment strategy for filling the two open positions, and about the workload in the district attorneys’ offices.

Best said his office has yet to receive any qualified applicants for the two open positions, which carry special requirements from the state in conjunction with money from SB22, and he speculated about the future of the position being county-paid rather than grant-funded.

“Nobody wants a grant-funded position,” he said.

“As far as the Attorney III position, we are considering our options; we may be looking at promoting internally, for that position, and the loss of that grant money will affect our ability to fill that position and leave open an Attorney-II position that we still have to fill.”

“Everybody is stretched very thin right now,” he said, “It seems like that’s usual in our offices these days.

“It’s just a matter of retention…Or we’re going to end up being three-prosecutors short, and we’re going to start losing more people because they can’t keep up with the workload. It’s a snowball; and it’s painful.”

Carter agreed with that part. “It is a snowball,” he said.

Best followed up saying, “We may be coming to you here in the next budget cycle and — we’ve been there before — using state-supplement money to even things out, and when you do that, you have to do what you have to do to keep people. I wouldn’t call it desperate times just yet, but it was back when we lost three of our prosecutors at once.

Judge Carter said he was thinking about all of the other departments, come budget time, that are going to “want some kind of mechanism” to improve their salaries, and Best countered by saying the SB22 money was given by the state specifically because they recognize the difficulty of hiring and retaining qualified prosecutors, so the request is right in line with the money’s intent.

“We were suffering, because we couldn’t retain and recruit prosecutors, and we are blessed here to have two district attorneys offices, so we received two grants, and that’s allowed us to hire and retain support staff and advocate-services staff and retain prosecutors.

“So, that’s what the money is for. And that’s what we are asking you to let us use it for; to retain one of our experienced, excellent prosecutors, that we are going to lose.

“It will be very problematic,” he added. “

The discussion lasted almost 50 minutes as commissioners and Judge Carter continued to question Best on other ways he might increase the compensation for Martinez through merit raises later on, or figuring out a division of SB22 funds across all the Attorney III positions.

Best tried time and again to make his case plainly, telling the court in no uncertain terms he believed that if no action was taken today, the prosecutor in question was very likely to accept the offer from Midland, and he called retention of Martinez “critical” to the mission of his office.

He also said that the three applicants they did have for the open job all ended up taking positions in other jurisdictions.

At that point, Judge Carter addressed the “elephant in the room” by saying that whatever the court did to enhance the salary of a prosecutor in the district attorney’s office, they would have to do later for the public defenders.

“They’re here watching,” Carter said gesturing to a Public Defenders Office representative in the front row. “Where does it stop with the comparisons? We can only go so far.”

Best said he didn’t think they were asking the court to go outside of the normal boundaries of what the position pays.

After a good bit of further questions and comments from commissioners Bacon, Nanny and Farmer, officials decided to table the request for a “couple of weeks” and look at other options, rather than vote the measure down.

Texas Senate Bill 22, enacted by the 88th Legislature, established a grant program to provide financial assistance to sheriff’s, constable’s, and prosecutor’s offices in rural Texas counties, available in January of 2024.

According to information from the county’s website, the Assistant District Attorney III’s annual salary starts at $107,730.

The 51st and 119th District Attorneys share jurisdiction within Tom Green County. The 51st District Attorney also serves Coke, Irion, Schleicher, and Sterling Counties, and the 119th District Attorney also serves Concho and Runnels Counties and they are the only jurisdiction in Texas where two elected district attorneys share the same office, support staff, and assistant district attorneys.

The office has a total of thirty-two employees, which include twelve prosecutors, three investigators, and four victim-witness coordinators with jurisdiction over adult felony offenders, and juvenile offenders who commit both misdemeanor and felony offenses.