La Crosse’s DA office five positions short of ideal

DA says likely to get staff raises over more help.

A La Crosse County committee recently learned that the district attorney’s office is about five persons short of its ideal staffing level.

Other counties have the same complaint, and they’re asking the legislature either for more manpower or more money to pay prosecutors.

“It seems that it’s always one or the other,” La Crosse’s district attorney Tim Gruenke said. “Either they’ll fund more pay raises or they’ll fund more positions but not both.”

Gruenke says the state usually leans toward raises, and that’s what Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker supports.

Low salaries and heavy workloads are often cited as reasons why prosecutors go into private practice instead.

“So for 10 years of working another job, you may have gotten a little bit of a raise,” Gruenke said. “As an ADA, you didn’t get a raise and, actually, are making less money because the state started taking out more for insurance, retirement.”

The average district attorney’s office in Wisconsin will lose about 20 percent of its prosecutors in a year, according to a recent statewide study.

The La Crosse County DA generally has to replace one or two departing prosecutors a year, often because those people get higher-paying jobs.

“I hope some day the legislature realizes that, with all the laws and the tougher penalties that they impose, they need to have people available to prosecute and need to retain people so there’s experienced people prosecuting,” Gruenke said.

Gruenke says prosecutors should be offered greater incentive, in order to make a career out of being a DA.

State employees’ salaries for 2015 can be found here, including Gruenke’s at $114,856.