Ahead of fiscal year 2025, Ashworth similarly requested more staff members despite the Board being reluctant to fund additional positions. In response, Ashworth sent a letter to the Board stating she would withhold prosecution of certain misdemeanor charges if the Board didn’t approve her request.
“The bottom line is that this office was not properly staffed and funded for decades as the County grew up around us,” Ashworth wrote in an email to Potomac Local in April 2024.
In light of the letter, supervisors stated their outrage with the situation. Supervisor Bob Weir, at the time, pointed to Fairfax County’s Commonwealth Attorney’s Office being more efficient with a higher population and a smaller staff. Ashworth ended up receiving funding for 12 positions in FY2025.
On April 15, at the most recent Board meeting, Ashworth returned to request more staff members, but was met with similar hesitancy. She pointed to a 2023 study conducted by the Commonwealth’s Compensation Board, which set a staff member goal for each jurisdiction. The Compensation Board is able to provide funding for positions based on need throughout Virginia.
The study stated that Prince William County, in fiscal year 2026, should have 61 attorneys, 12 paralegals and 25 administrative staff members based on the office’s workload. As of Ashworth’s presentation, her office has 42 attorneys, seven paralegals and 16 administrative staff members.
“We’ve got this frustration by our judges because our prosecutors are very often in another courtroom, and so you’ve got some longer wait times for police officers, judges, victims, witnesses and defendants. We’ve heard from the court that it’s frustrating,” Ashworth said in her April 15 presentation. “… The other important need and challenge that we’ve addressed for quite some time is attorney burnout and resignations. We are losing really good, experienced attorneys to other jurisdictions where their caseloads are lower.”
Ashworth said the number of criminal case filings in the county has increased significantly over the past two years, from 33,370 in 2022 to 41,958 in 2024.
Ashworth noted the General Assembly budgeted to fund 70 positions across the state in FY2026, but information on which jurisdictions will be awarded won’t be available until May.
She said if all of her dreams came true and she could add new positions, she would want to add two attorneys to the juvenile unit, two to domestic violence, one to Special Investigations, one for civil matters and two line attorneys, someone who handles the day-to-day responsibilities for a case.
“I would love to have an attorney in Special Investigations that I could cross-designate with the federal system. The Eastern District of the United States in Alexandria handles a lot of the gang cases that we see are brought by the task force because they’re not just in Prince William County, they’re crossing state borders and county borders,” she said. “To have an attorney on our staff who’s cross-designated with the feds would really allow us to leverage the laws that they have and bring justice to people on that level.”
Ashworth said she’d also like to add two paralegals for the specialized units and one for the line attorneys, an information technology person, witness clerks, a grand jury clerk, courtroom clerks and trial clerks.
Weir again expressed his hesitation to fund Ashworth’s requests for more staff members.
“You have, at least with respect to the eight largest jurisdictions in the Commonwealth, you had the second highest average expenditure per [full-time employee]. So I’m having a hard time justifying even more FTE,” Weir said. “You know, I get what the General Assembly’s saying or what the study’s saying, but … it looks like Prince William is an anomaly in terms of its ask.”
He pointed to Fairfax County and Chesterfield County near Williamsburg, which have both cut back on staffing and funding to their respective Commonwealth Attorney’s offices.
“Fairfax County, 2.5 times our population, just cut three FTE. They have significantly lower numbers than you do. And my understanding is they seem to be fine,” Weir pointed out. “I know the Chesterfield CA asked for additional positions based on this study, and the Chesterfield board last week said no, and the CA was fine with that.”
Ashworth said she’s not aware of what other counties are doing because she’s focused on Prince William County.
“I care about Prince William County and Prince William County’s needs. I don’t know what Fairfax is doing,” she said. “If you’re interested, we can invite Steve Discano down and he can explain what he does, but every single Commonwealth Attorney that I’ve spoken to in the Virginia Association of Commonwealth Attorneys is abiding by this time study and making requests.”
Weir said he was willing to compromise with Ashworth in giving her office additional funding for paralegals and administrators.
“I’m willing to compromise a little bit, and I don’t have an issue with the admin and the paralegal side to bring you a little more in line,” he said. “Hell, I might even be willing to give you more paralegals on top of the two, but not more paralegals, not more admin staff and more staff attorneys.”
