Council 04-28-2026 [38:00-43:07]

Or, you know, ladies might go to tea, and gossip would happen at tea, or quilting circles, or whatnot. Social media has taken that over. That's where people can be anonymous and spread information, and get clicks, and drive you to pay wall sites, and do all those sorts of things with inflammatory language or partial information. And, you know, you've got to be careful of the source of the information that you're getting. And I don't care what people put on Facebook, or on internet, or social media. I care what you guys, where you guys get your information, and how you gather your information, because it's important when you're making these decisions. You turn to page three. How to spot fake news. Well, if there's no buy line, then there's no accountability. Who's providing this information to you? One-sided. Did the person make an attempt to interview the sources of information, or stakeholders? Is it clickbait with sharp headlines, accusations, and pass-throughs to pay walls? Think about those things when you're reading these sources of information, and being told these sources of information. And what should you do when you spot fake news? Do the work they should have done. Investigate it. Educate others on the topic and the source and resist the urge to go to war in the comments section, because it feeds the beast for clickbait. Again, you are who matters, so let's get it right. So, I want to nix and narrative that's out there. I want to nix it with accurate facts. And a fair comparison of two different agencies requires three things that we look at all the expenditures that are counted for. That we take into account all personnel and have them accounted for, and then measure the responsibilities. The fake news narrative that may be out there is out there, only gathered partial budget data, excluded funds that are being expended for, or the actual operating cost being paid by the state, ignored substantial state reimbursements for public defender agency, and failed to compare the scope of legal obligations that the public defender's agency engages in. And I put it in a graphic on page five so that you can see. So, there was an article out there that said the public defenders have more money than the prosecutor's office does. And if you look at one budget, the general fund budget, that might seem true if you compare just those two things. But you've got to look at what the operating costs of both agencies are, and the way to do that is really easily. You pull the 2025 budgets and you look at expenditures. Total expenditures are outlined on this sheet, and you'll see that if you just look at total expenditures and you add in the state paid salaries, then the total operating costs for the two agencies or two departments is listed right there. Well, fortunately, the state does contribute to both departments. The elected prosecutor and the chief deputy prosecutor are paid for by the state. The chief deputy public defender and chief deputy public defender aren't. But the public defender's agency gets the reimbursement that was talked about in the article and that we talk about in here because we talked about those reimbursements to the tune of $449,000 in reimbursements. You subtract all of that out and you get the net operating costs. That's as close to apples to apples as we can get when it comes to what is an agency cost the counties, you look at expenditures. And you'll see that unlike the article suggests the public defender's agency is not costing more than the prosecutor's office. If you turn to page six, you'll see, and I know the public defender's office has been referred to as the largest law firm in the county and then just, again, isn't the truth. It's something that you can use some simple math to figure out it's not true. There are seven full-time prosecutors, two are state-funded, and there are six and a half public defenders. So six full-time, one part-time. By my best count, I got that there are eight support staff for the prosecutor's office. That includes 4D. And then there are five public defender support staff. Also, I think it's important to notice ability to decline cases. The prosecutor's office decides what charge is to charge, what gets filed. They largely set the table on what's the case load. Now, crime is crime, and they have to charge crimes that are out there, but they have the ability to decline cases.