NORWICH – The Chenango County District Attorney’s Office will be forced to cut one of its assistants at the start of the new year due to a cut in state grant funding.
For the last six years, the office has received an Aid to Prosecution grant from New York’s Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) which helped cover the cost of an assistant district attorney’s position and a legal secretary. After December, the grant will run out.
“That grant has allowed us to have an extra ADA at the county level who has aided in several felony prosecutions, law enforcement investigations and extensively covered local justice court in more than a half dozen municipalities,” said District Attorney Joseph A. McBride.
On Jan. 1, ADA James P. Chamberlain, a Norwich attorney and a nine-year veteran of the DA’s Office, will step down as a local prosecutor as the grant expires.
McBride said his office had received the grant annually since 2003 and in its first year, the funds awarded were about $50,000. Since that time, the amount has steadily decreased until the office received $35,300 in 2009.
The DA’s Office currently employs a full-time confidential secretary, the district attorney, one full-time ADA and secretary and two part-time ADA’s and their secretaries.
Chamberlain is a part-time ADA and receives an annual salary of $33,097, according to the 2009 Chenango County budget. His secretary is also part-time and received $4,388 in 2009. McBride estimated that an additional $12,000 was associated with benefit costs for the two positions.
