District Attorney Robert Busbee of the Ogeechee Judicial Circuit, who took office in January, has requested increased funding from the circuit’s four counties, including initially a 78% increase in funding from the government of the largest county, Bulloch.
Bulloch County’s funding to its Animal Services agency, he notes, has been more than what it provides the D.A.’s Office, which prosecutes all of the county’s felony criminal cases. What the county administration and commissioners have offered so far, in the county’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2026, which opens July 1, is a 20% increase.
In a conversation with the Statesboro Herald on June 2, Busbee first sought to clarify his role in asking for a GBI investigation involving Bulloch County Public Works contracts, said to be involving a commissioner, and how it came about.
But the main thing he wanted to talk about was funding for this office, which he said is trailing far behind the needs of an area with a growing population.
“The budget has been probably our biggest problem since I’ve gotten into the office. We’ve made a lot of structural changes to try to address our lack of funding,” said Busbee, previously a private-practice defense attorney. “When I first come in, of course, I’ve got no idea how much money it would take to run the office. Neither did my predecessor, it would seem.”
So he went online and found census data, figured out which Georgia judicial circuits were similar in size, and created a comparison with four circuits ranking just above and four just below to the Ogeechee Circuit, and looked at counties’ budgets – most but not all of which are available online – for the D.A.’s office line item. Of the four Ogeechee Circuit counties he used only Bulloch County, population 81,099 as of 2020, and Effingham County, population 64,769, in his comparison. They are by far the largest counties in the circuit, which also includes Jenkins and Screven counties.
The chart he produced of 18 counties’ fiscal 2025 D.A. budgets showed Bulloch, with $688,058 funding to the D.A.’s office, or $8.48 per capita, and Effingham, with $637,510, or $9.84 per capita, at the very bottom among the roughly similar-size counties from various circuits. Topping the chart was Catoosa County, population 67,872, with over $2 million funding to its district attorney’s office, or $29.74 per resident. Liberty County, at Hinesville, was fifth, with 65,256 people, and almost $1.26 million D.A.’s office funding, or $19.29 per resident. Glynn County, at Brunswick, which with 84,488 people is very similar to Bulloch in population, was shown with $1.3 million in D.A.’s office funding, or $19.29 per capita.
Busbee also held up a list of Bulloch County’s funded county departments and agencies, which showed the D.A.’s office fiscal 2025 funding of $688,058 and currently proposed funding of $825,670, after a proposed 20% increase, for fiscal 2026 ranking just below the funding for Animal Services, $771,334 for fiscal 2025 and $872,397 for 2026.
‘A gut punch’
“To me it’s about priorities. …, ” he said. “You know, the animal control figure was kind of a gut punch for me and my staff. I mean, we’ve got three death penalty cases over in Effingham County. We’re getting ready to try this guy that shot a cop and do murders and rapes and child molestations, and we’re below Animal Services and Recreation Administration and the Magistrate Court.”
One consideration missing from this comparison is the fact that departments such as Bulloch County Animal Services are one-county, county-funded agencies. District attorney’s offices receive state funding for at least some of the attorneys’ salaries. The Statesboro Herald is seeking further information on this.
A related question, not researched by the newspaper at this point, is whether some of the higher-budgeted counties include state funding as a pass-through in their totals. Bulloch and Effingham show only the allocations of county money to the D.A.’s Office. What Busbee had requested was that those two counties increase their funding shares for his agency to $15 per capita. That would have made Bulloch County’s share $1,216,485, a 78% increase, and Effingham’s share $971,535.
This would have moved them up to 11th and 12th in his 18-county comparison. The smaller, 20%, increase in Bulloch County’s currently proposed budget would leave the county in one of the two lowest positions, with $10.18 funding per capita. The county’s Magistrate Court, and its misdemeanor Probation Office, with over $1 million each, would still receive more funding than Bulloch would provide to the District Attorney’s Office.
“My budget request was for a 78% increase, which is a lot, but it’s also based on figures that are five years old. It’s from where we would be population-wise in 2020, and we’re almost to 2030,” Busbee said.
He notes that one projection the Herald previously reported had Bulloch growing to 100,000 residents by 2030.
“The request for 78% was to get us to a place where we could function at least somewhat akin to the other circuits our current size,” said Busbee.
Bulloch County’s highest-funded agency is the Sheriff’s Office, with a proposed fiscal 2026 budget of almost $23.5 million. He is not objecting to that, but noted that the sheriff’s felony cases could not go to trial without the work of the D.A.’s Office.
Chairman’s position
Busbee had talked to Bulloch commissioners Chairman David Bennett about the request for a larger increase.
“I told him I appreciate the 20%, I really do, but it’s not enough,” Busbee said. “We’re barely holding it together here. He said given the circumstances, 78% is just out of reach this year, and I told him, if you can get us to 40, we’ll hold this place together with shoestring and duct tape for another year.”
In a phone interview Friday, Bennett said he wants to provide the 40% increase, which would mean doubling the proposed increase to about $270,000.
“I’m going to work to try to get him to 40, but if you look at the proposed budget we have right now … we’re using money from our emergency fund, the rainy day fund, whatever you want to call it – it’s really the balance forward or remainder of the general fund that we try to keep in reserve for emergencies – to fund the budget this year,” Bennett said.
The county also budgeted spending from the reserve last year, but revenues exceeded projections.
“However, with the money that we’ve spent this year on storm relief, a lot of that money is still tied up and we haven’t been reimbursed by GEMA and FEMA, and to maintain good accounting practices and a good credit rating and show … that we’re being good stewards of the tax dollar, we need to keep at least 30% of our budget in reserve,” Bennett said.
So, any further increases now may require cuts elsewhere, and the commissioners have difficult choices to make, he said.