Funding of Constitutional Officers - Virginia Joint Legislative Audit ...

The Compensation Board AGREES with the staff recommendation that
the General Assembly may wish to consider adoption of a required
local matching portion of constitutional officer funding. The
Compens3tion Board notes, however, that local funding for
Commonwealth Attorney offices may present some problems, as
Commonwealth Attorneys are called upon to render opinions which may
be contrary to the interests of the local governing body. This
potential should be addressed and a solution determined, because
prosecutors are charged with the responsibility of overseeing the
conduct of local officials and prosecuting them when their conduct
goes beyond accepted ethical standards. Implicit in the present
funding concept is that these decisions should be made independently
of local pressures. JLARC, on the other hand, would place the
prosecutor in the position of having to consider the potential
political and fiscal implications of decisions he must make. Doing
away with the buffer afforded by the Compensation Board will do a
substantial disservice to the public by tying the prosecutor too
closely to the whims of local officials. Whenever prosecutorial
decisions involve those officials, their friends or political
supporters, the potential for those decisions to be based on
improper motives is significantly enhanced. Real or apparent, the
conflict involved will reduce the public's confidence that the
prosecutor is simply concerned with seeing that justice is done.
The Compensation Board would also like for the General Assembly
to consider extending the constitutional officer right of appeal to
a three judge panel to include local governments as well. In many
instances, constitutional officers are required by their local
governments to perform duties for which they are not staffed, only
to have the Compensation Board deny additional funding because the
duties are local in nature. The constitutional officer is then
placed in a position of appealing a Compensation Board budget
decision which was created by the local government.
The study does not address the need of Constitutional Officers
to reserve the right of appeal. Regardless of the actions taken on
the study, Officers must maintain their rights to appeal their
budgets. A body or procedure independent of the local government
must exist to settle budgetary disputes between the Officers and the
local governing body. The study provides only a method to meet the
local portion of state funding. The study does not, however,
address the need of Officers to get funding beyond this level.
Where local mandates are placed on these Officers there exists no
procedure to ensure that the local governing body provides funds to
meet these mandates. Constitutional Officers must have a means of
getting this funding through an appeal process.
The Compensation Board DISAGREES with the staff recommendation
concerning a pre-payment or block grant system for constitutional
officers. Some will argue that block grant funding is easier to
control, and localities will, therefore, be able to better budget
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