CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — A recent study done by a researcher at the William and Mary Law School looked at the prosecutor shortage across the country. Some places like the City of Miami have 33 percent of their prosecutor positions unfilled.
Nueces County was also mentioned in that article and right now the District Attorney's Office is short 11 prosecutors.
District attorney offices across the state are continuing to have trouble hiring and keeping prosecutors and that is especially true here in south Texas, largely due to low pay.
In Kleberg County they've been able to get prosecutor pay up over $100,000 a year.
"What we are doing right now is we're basically two prosecutors short for our caseload but we just don't have the money to pay them," Kleberg County District Attorney John Hubert said. "So, what we have done is plussed up the salaries of the prosecutors that we do have and I tried to keep them."
These days the district attorney is keeping in constant contact with the governor's office as he tries to get more money to hire another prosecutor.
"We've asked for more help from the state and I think the state is considering right now," Hubert said.
Jim Wells County District Attorney Carlos Garcia sent 3NEWS a statement outlining that he has eight attorney positions and two remain vacant. He too has been able to take advantage of state border prosecution dollars to increase minimum pay from $90,000 to $105,000.
Nueces County District Attorney Jimmy Granberry said shortages in his office has led to more focused prosecution of some cases over others.
"You have to concentrate on the violent crimes," Granberry said. "I don't feel like anybody Corpus Christi is suffering on the violent crime side. We're hitting some good licks on those. And I'm proud of the work we have done on that."
He said his office has to focus on violent crimes over property crimes because he's short 11 prosecutors. Starting pay here is $67,000 a year. He says he's asking that all of his attorneys pay be increased to try and keep who he has and be able to attract a few attorneys ready for a challenging job.
"We did ask for an increase and I'm hopeful we are going to get the increase that we asked for," Granberry said.
The budget for the District Attorney's Office will have to be approved by commissioners. That raise is basically to move prosecutor pay up by two steps, so someone making $74,000 would get bumped up to around $82,000 a year.
Granberry says that still is not enough to compete with surrounding counties but, it is a start.