Mobile City Council discussed supplemental funding to the District Attorney's Office and heard from District Attorney Keith Blackwood at its regular meeting on Tuesday.
Blackwood said the City Council must approve $1.1 million in funding for his office, even though it is a State agency.
"Worst case scenario, there would be layoffs," Blackwood told the council. "That means that the prosecutors who remain would have heavier caseloads."
The supplemental funding was initiated to address a COVID backlog of cases. Blackwood said that the backlog has been eliminated, and half of the regular backlog has been eliminated. If the DA's office does not receive the funding, Blackwood said, layoffs would cause the backlog to rise quickly.
"It's to keep this ball rolling," said Blackwood. "It is crushing the rest of the backlog. It is getting to where we have swift justice, not people languishing in jail, not victims waiting years and years to get justice."
However, Councilman Ben Reynolds said he thinks the state should be responsible.
"From my perspective, this is a no-brainer," said Reynolds. "This is the highest priority. I mean, one of the highest priorities that we should have when our district attorney's offices have violent crime problems across the state, and it makes absolute sense that you get the funding you need. But what doesn't make absolute sense is that the state is relying on the municipality to put up the money when they're spending 20% of their general fund to fund one of the highest priorities in the state.
"It's almost like we have a gun to our head you know, if you're in the city of Mobile, where the state says, 'We're not going to give the money so we'll put the gun to the head of the citizens of Mobile and the City of Mobile so that they're going to be forced to put the money up to protect their own safety when these are the state grounds," he added. "You enforce state law."
Reynolds said he wants state legislators to be aware of this issue and hopes lawmakers will address it.
Councilwoman Gina Gregory said she wants to support the DA's office temporarily, but wants to see a permanent fix.
"It's ridiculous. I mean, it really, really is. The legislature is in session right now. Y'all need to be before them, in their offices, at that State House, saying, 'Where is our money in the budget?' Because that is their responsibility," Gregory told Blackwood. "When we have to give up $1.1 million for the next three years, that's money coming out of things that we do in the city, the turf that we just were talking about in the park, ditches, drainage, all manner of things that we do as municipal government.
"So, I understand it's citizens of Mobile that 60% of the issues are from. We can't allow those things to linger. At the same time, for the City of Mobile, you have to pick up all that gap. It's just not right," she added.
The Mobile County District Attorney's Office receives 20.7% of its funding from the State, 50.1% from the County and through various fees and grants.
"In my mind, we should be fully funded by the state," said Blackwood. "We are not statewide district attorney's offices that are required to raise $70 million a year just for operations. That is for payroll. That is for expenses related to trying very complicated cases all the way down to traffic tickets."
Blackwood said cuts to the DA's office would impact the City of Mobile the most because 60% of the DA's felony cases come from the city. However, he said he plans to approach other cities in the county to request additional funding.
Mobile chief of operations James Barber said he has compared funding levels of other DA's offices across the state and found that Alabama's Big 10 cities are all facing the same issue. He said that although the DA's office is a state agency, all levels of government have responsibilities.
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