Island County Prosecuting Attorney Greg Banks presented his 2007 budget proposal to county commissioners last week: a one-item wish list with an asterisk.

Last week, Banks made his eighth budget request. In a way, it was a bit like his first.

“I’m not actually asking for a lot of money,” Banks told county commissioners.

“The board’s actually been good to our offices this year,” Banks said, then paused. “The board of county commissioners has been very good.”

“We’d like direct quotes,” commissioner Mike Shelton joked, turning to the reporters in the room.

In his 2007 budget proposal, Banks asked commissioners for a computer upgrade for the prosecuting attorney’s case management system – a $50,000 to $60,000 makeover that would come paired with annual maintenance fees of roughly $13,000.

The prosecutor’s office now uses a case management system awash in paperwork. About 600 hours is spent manually entering data into the case management system because the computer system used by Oak Harbor police and sheriff’s deputies can’t easily exchange information with the prosecutor’s outdated system.

Even so, Banks said the case management set-up his office has now was a vast improvement over the one he inherited, which consisted of more than 20,000 Rolodex cards on spools spread throughout the prosecuting attorney’s office.

“The one that the board authorized me to purchase seven years ago is, for the most part, obsolete. It served us well, and it was a bargain basement system, and it sure beat the Rolodex cards we had before that, but we’re really lagging behind,” Banks told county commissioners.

An office employee has to type in each police officer, witness and party in a case into the case management system, as well as all the crime information needed to properly track, charge and prosecute each case.

“We get paper reports from police and I have a legal secretary that does all the data entry. Every officer, every witness, names and addresses, their role in the case, the charges, dates and times and locations, all that stuff has to be manually entered right now because of the limitations of our current system,” Banks said.

With a new system, that information could be shared electronically with Spillman, the computer system used by police.

Several sources could be tapped to pay for the new case management system, including money from the county’s drug fund and its anti-profiteering fund, which is money that’s seized from criminals. Roughly $30,000 for the purchase could come from the county’s capital equipment budget.

Banks also wants the county to set aside any budget surplus in his office that’s left over at the end of this year.

Banks said the new system is needed because the number of cases has risen dramatically in recent years.

The number of felony cases will set a record this year, and mark a 150-percent increase over the number of felony cases from a decade ago, Banks said.

A total of 128 felony cases were filed in 1996 in superior court; that number is expected to hit 357 by the end of this year.

The number of misdemeanor cases has also climbed by 50 percent since 1999; 965 cases were prosecuted in 1999, a total of 1,446 are expected to be filed before the end of 2006.

Banks said the new case management system is an economical investment that would show immediate results.

“These systems we’re looking at will allow us to download the complete police reports, digitally recorded interviews, digital photographs: The whole thing comes down as a package and will go right into our case management system. It saves us a lot of time,” he said.

It will help prevent transcription errors, and could also help cut down on paperwork sent to defense lawyers, Banks said, because the county could share its court information electronically.

Banks also asked the commissioners for something without an immediate impact on next year’s budget. He requested that commissioners create a committee to examine how much the county is paying chief deputies and non-union professionals in the prosecutor’s office

“I think the county really needs to take a look at how we pay our professionals. We want to attract the best ones we can get, and we want to keep them here once we get them,” Banks said.

Work on next year’s budget is expected to wrap up next month.

On Wednesday, Nov. 1, the board of commissioners will conduct a final budget review with the budget director during a regular staff session.

Brian Kelly can be reached at 221-5300 or bkelly@southwhidbeyrecord.com.