Prosecutors in Lincoln County push for higher wages

The Lincoln County Attorney's Office is pushing for higher wages for its employees, citing the growth in cases and retention struggles.

County Attorney Marcia Boris lobbied the Lincoln County commissioners July 12 to increase the pay for a new deputy attorney to make it easier to attract and keep people in the position. She also wanted to see a wage bump for Deputy County Attorney Jeffrey Zwang.

“We are on the brink of a crisis situation,” Boris told commissioners. “We’re not doing a good job of attracting and keeping quality people.”

Boris said the county has six ongoing homicide or attempted homicide cases.

“We are getting help from the state Attorney General’s Office in two of them, but we are still involved with them in some form or another,” Boris said. “We have five felony trials scheduled in the new few months and these are all hands-on-deck cases.”

Commissioner Josh Letcher said the county is limited in what it can pay because the vast majority of the budget goes to the Sheriff's Office.

“Ninety-two mills of the 99 we levy goes to the Sheriff’s Office and we are trying to balance all the department’s needs,” Letcher said.

Boris said she appreciates the work of the Sheriff’s Office and understands the demands of its duties, but questioned other areas of the budget. She counted more than 30 county employees making above $50,000 annually, including the three commissioners.

“I was unable to get job descriptions for these positions, however many of these positions do not require even a bachelor’s degree,” Boris said.

Boris said Zwang, the deputy county attorney, makes $75,400 annually. She is seeking an increase for his position to $90,000 a year to “bring it in line with others in his position and for his expertise.”

“Jeff has been in our office for nine years, but we see other counties paying attorneys with no experience considerably more,” she said. “When Jeff finished law school, he returned home and lived with his parents for a number of years to pay down his student loan debt.

“The deputy county attorney position requires a doctorate level degree and admission to the Montana State Bar,” Boris said. “There are no qualified individuals currently employed with the county that could be hired internally and there is no interest in the position among local attorneys.”

Levi Roadman was the third attorney in the county office before he left to take a job in the Montana Office of the Attorney General earlier this year. There have been no applicants for the open deputy position.

“When I came here in 2008, there were three attorneys in this office,” Boris said. “The state Legislature has passed new laws on youth in need of care cases that has increased the workload. If we don’t fill the the second deputy position, we cannot fulfill the statutory obligations we are required by the state to fulfill.”

Commissioner Brent Teske said the county may need to contract some of the work out.

“Things are tight and we can continue to discuss it, but we won’t know all the numbers until sometime in August,” Teske said.

“We’d prefer to have people come here and live here and be invested in the community,” Boris replied.

Boris said her office filed 205 felony, juvenile, commitment and youth in need of care cases in 2021 and 173 in 2022.

“We had 23 district court trials last year and I have had to ask for prosecutorial assistance from the Attorney General for the first time since I took office in 2017,” Boris said. “Our internal records show we had 176 justice court cases last year and it appears we are on track to exceed that this year.

“Our current caseload is not sustainable with only two attorneys in the office,” she said.

Boris said that during training with the state Attorney General's Office, “We were told that they are essentially maxed out right now and that we should seek assistance from neighboring counties with conflict cases.

“The problem with that is Sanders County does not have a County Attorney and Flathead County is not operating at full capacity,” Boris said.