The Mobile County District Attorney’s Office became the latest in Alabama to get a subsidy from local taxpayers.

With support on Tuesday, the Mobile City Council allocated $1.5 million from the city’s budget surplus to support the District Attorney’s annual funding for the next three years. The money will be paid out in $500,000 annual allocations and represents about 8% of the annual $6 million overall budget for the office.

The appropriation goes toward hiring four additional prosecutors and is expected to help the office clear a backlog of criminal cases built up since the onset of the pandemic.

“It’s encouraging to me that our leaders in government are willing to work together for the betterment of people,” said District Attorney Keith Blackwood, who was first elected to the job in November. “We’ve been fortunate to have local support from our county, and we’re excited the city is coming on board to support us as well.”

Council members said they were “reluctant” to offer support, acknowledging that the District Attorney’s Office is a state agency that should be funded more with state money.

“It’s a sad day when the city of Mobile has to diver $1.5 million from other resources to fund a state agency at a time when the state is enjoying its largest budget,” said Councilman Joel Daves. “I see this as a failure of the state of Alabama to properly fund the criminal justice system in this state.”

He added, “This is unfair to the city of Mobile and unfair to the people who sit in our jails who are entitled to swift justice.”

Other council members agreed.

“It hurts when I have neighborhoods in decline every year (and that) $500,000 can go a long way over three years,” said Councilman William Carroll.

Council President C.J. Small said the state’s 42 district attorney offices could be funded if the Alabama Legislature legalized gambling, a proposal that receives annual consideration in Montgomery but has not resulted in any concrete measure that would also include a statewide lottery.

“I’m not a gambler, but every single day, money leaves out of the state of Alabama an goes to Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, and Tennessee,” Small said. “You have the city up here trying to support a state agency. Why not put lottery and casinos in Alabama and keep the money at home?”

The financial committee to the District Attorney’s Office was first made public by Mayor Sandy Stimpson on February 27. The mayor, in a news release, advocated for the council to support the money to help address a “lingering backlog of criminal cases” within the Mobile County court circuit.

Stimpson, last spring, blamed the backlog for creating a “broken” criminal justice system in Mobile County hampered by over 345 untried murder cases at the time.

Blackwood said that shoring up criminal cases will help alleviate the city’s overcrowded jail where violent offenders “who belong in state custody” remain awaiting their cases to be resolved.

“We were in a backlog (before the pandemic),” said James Barber, Stimpson’s chief of staff. “It’s the biggest function of government to assure the safety of the public. For the interest of public safety and justice itself, it’s important to get these jury trials going. We think it’s very important.”

Blackwood said he has been able to “chip through” some of that backlog but admitted that his prosecutors need help. He said Mobile County has the highest caseload per prosecutor at 450 cases, and that a single prosecutor often has to square off against a defense team consisting of three or more attorneys.

Blackwood has a staff of 26 prosecutors, and is hoping to add seven more. He said his office is working with other entities to secure additional funding. The $1.5 million, he said will be able to pay for the salary and benefits of four prosecutors, and he hopes to “stretch the money” and add two additional staff members.

“As soon as we get the funding, we’ll start hiring,” he said.

The District Attorney’s financial plight illustrates an ongoing concern in Alabama over how prosecutors are funded statewide. The issue was highlighted in 2020, during the height of the pandemic, when COVID-19 closed state courts and froze the collection of fees from the court system. A majority of DAs across Alabama get their budgets funding primarily through court fees.

Each of the 42 district attorney circuits in the state share under $40 million each year out of the General Fund. It’s unclear how much will be allocated during this year’s budget, though Gov. Kay Ivey’s Administration has initially requested increases in state budgets.

Blackwood said that only 30% of his budget, similar to most DAs in the state, is supported by the General Fund. He said other counties, like Montgomery County, are heavily backed by local sources. In Montgomery County, the county commission provides the majority of funding to District Attorney Daryl Bailey’s office.

In Tuscaloosa County, District Attorney Hays Webb sought funding last year from local governments, and received a $30,000 allocation from the City of Northport. The funding came from a federal court settlement with opioid producers.

Blackwood said he has not reached out to smaller cities in Mobile County about financial support. He said the support from the City of Mobile came after Stimpson and Barber reached out to his office to initiate talks about the financial backing.

The DAs office has had a bumpy past relationship with the Mobile County Commission. In 2017, then office under then-District Attorney Ashley Rich, settled a five-year dispute against the commission over the annual funding to the office. The county opted to contribute an additional $1.2 million to the DAs office, above the $1.5 million it had already been allocating for more than a decade.

Blackwood called the funding system for the state’s DAs as antiquated, and deferred comments to the Alabama District Attorneys Association over potential criminal justice bills that could be introduced this session to address the system. Barry Matson, the association’s executive director, could not be reached for comment.