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For the second year in a row, Multnomah County District Attorney Nathan Vasquez ripped into County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson’s proposed budget, saying his “wildly underfunded” agency faces the prospect of losing roughly 10% of its deputy district attorneys, plus other investigators and staff.
Acknowledging that complaints about the “crushing workload” and declining average age of his staff might not stir the public to action, Vasquez emphasized in a Monday interview with WW that he foresees an array of more tangible impacts: “massive delays” in cases, misdemeanors going unpunished, and a deemphasis on promising but labor-intensive systems designed to give some criminal offenders an alternative to jail.
“I go to all the graduations for the various treatment courts we have because it gives me hope,” Vasquez says, “but that takes investment.”
Still, county budget data indicates the proposed cuts, far from radically remaking the DA’s office, would simply return it to 2024 staffing levels (which, to be clear, Vazquez believes were woefully insufficient).
And Vasquez is hardly the only agency chief displeased with Vega Pederson’s proposed budget cuts, which would hit nearly every county department amid a deficit in the county general fund (the main source of revenue for the DA’s office) and homeless services funding too. (Among other things, Vega-Pederson proposes to close hundreds of shelter beds.)
“I made tough choices to prioritize vulnerable neighbors and improve how our government works,” Vega-Pederson said in her letter announcing the budget. “These are necessary to produce a sustainable budget.”
The two county commissioners seeking to succeed Vega Pederson, Julia Brim-Edwards and Shannon Singleton, produced alternative proposed budgets within 48 hours of the chair releasing hers.
