Franklin County's prosecutor's office is losing ground against a caseload that has quadrupled since 2011, even as county commissioners trimmed the office's 2026 budget in the final days before adoption, according to a report from the Tri-City Herald.
Commissioners Stephen Bauman and Clint Didier cut $160,000 from the office's budget just before final approval, eliminating a planned deputy prosecutor position that county officials say is urgently needed, the Herald reported. The same budget cycle slashed the county's juvenile services budget from $2.9 million to $500,000, with officials citing cost savings and plans to send youth offenders to a state facility in Medical Lake instead.
The cuts come as trial cases handled by the office have climbed from fewer than 100 in 2011 to nearly 400 today, driven largely by a surge in drug possession cases following the state Supreme Court's 2021 State v. Blake decision and by Franklin County's growing population.
A staffing gap unlike its neighbors
Franklin County, with roughly 103,000 residents, runs its prosecutor's office with a fraction of the staff seen in comparable Washington counties. Yakima County, with about 250,000 residents, employs 37 prosecutors. Benton County, with more than 217,000 residents, has 23. Franklin County Prosecutor Shawn Sant has pushed for more positions as the gap has widened, telling the Herald, "We recognize that community safety is such an important factor in our community, and we want to stay ahead of the curve."
In an October 2025 budget request, the office told commissioners it was juggling roughly 550 open felony matters with only 5.5 full-time prosecutors, about 100 open cases per attorney, according to Citizen Portal. The office asked for new case-management software and a restored senior deputy prosecutor position it had lost.
A yearlong pattern of warnings
The strain didn't start this fall. At a February 2025 workshop, staff warned the criminal division was headed toward roughly a 50% vacancy rate once a scheduled departure hit that March, according to Citizen Portal. "I can't do the work that we have if I have 5 vacancies in the criminal division," Prosecuting Attorney Sant told commissioners at the time.
Commissioners later adopted a revised prosecutor pay scale and created two senior positions after staff reported staffing already down about 42%, warning another departure could push the shortfall to 53%, according to Citizen Portal. Chief Criminal Deputy Maureen Asley read a statement to the board that month: "We are a nation of law and order," she said, adding, "I have been a prosecutor for 16 years, all of which I proudly served here in Franklin County … The county will lose me and others if your clear message is that you do not care to fund our prosecutor's office."
That same February, commissioners considered, then tabled, a $120,000-a-year contract with an outside law firm, Rio Fultz PLLC, to supply special deputy prosecutors for pretrial dockets and trials while the office worked to fill vacancies, Citizen Portal reported. County Administrator Eric Johnson told the board then, "We are probably past the point of time in a crisis mode of staffing for criminal deputies in the prosecutorial side." It's unclear whether that contract was ultimately approved.
Part of a longer legal-system crunch
The prosecutor's staffing troubles follow a 2023 shortage of qualified public defense attorneys in Franklin County that left some cases dismissed and suspects held in jail for months without a lawyer, the Daily Chronicle reported. That shortage later drew a Washington Supreme Court challenge over whether a Pasco man's constitutional rights were violated after he sat in jail for months awaiting a public defender, according to the Tri-City Herald.
What's not yet clear is the office's current 2026 vacancy rate, whether commissioners have taken any new action since last week's budget cut, or whether specific cases have been delayed or dismissed this year because of the shortage. County commission meetings are open to the public, and agendas are posted through the Franklin County website.
