A move by the county salary board will allow for better prosecution of cases in the courts.

On Thursday, the salary board voted to add an assistant district attorney position at District Attorney Rich Goldinger's office.

The new full-time ADA, when hired, will earn $66,500 plus retirement and benefits.

Goldinger said his office now has seven ADAs working 2,400 to 2,800 cases per year — or 400 to 500 cases per attorney.

When Goldinger took office in 2008, the same number of ADAs were on staff. But since then, three specialty courts, monthly trial terms, probation custody hearings and other tasks have been added at the courthouse, he said.

“It's just a lot of work we didn't have even five years ago, so I felt the timing was right to approach this,” Goldinger said.

He said the new position, which will raise the DA's staff of attorneys to eight plus Goldinger, will allow all ADAs and the DA more time to better prepare for court appearances.

“We're having a hard time keeping up,” Goldinger said of the current workload.

One reason Butler County doesn't have 10 ADAs — as Beaver and other counties do — is that Butler County attorneys are among the highest paid in the state, Goldinger said.

“We have fewer attorneys than other counties of a similar size,” Goldinger said.

County Commissioner Kevin Boozel said the growing number of homicides cause three times the workload for ADAs.

He said Goldinger's well thought-out presentation of the number of cases versus the attorneys available to prosecute them helped the commissioners decide to add a permanent, full-time ADA.

“He came at us with good data,” Boozel said.

The commissioners also want to avoid ADAs making plea deals because the workforce to prosecute cases is insufficient.

“We don't want to see cases skimmed over and plea deals offered,” Boozel said.

Goldinger said he hopes to have a new ADA in place by the end of January at the latest.