This article originally appeared on YachatsNews.comand is used here with permission.
The biggest challenge for Lincoln County’s newly elected district attorney may not be prosecuting bad guys but finding and keeping attorneys on her staff.
Jenna Wallace, the chief deputy district attorney who stepped in to run for district attorney at the last minute in March, won election this week to become Lincoln County’s third district attorney in four years.
Wallace, 34, of Toledo, won with 55 percent of the vote over longtime Newport defense attorney Kathryn Benfield — more than the 50 percent majority she needed to take office next January. With 95 percent of ballots counted Wednesday night, Wallace easily led Benfield 7,060 to 5,748.
District attorney Lanee Danforth defeated appointee Jonathan Cable in May 2020, took office in 2021 and filed for re-election last September. But she suddenly and without public explanation withdrew from the race in early March.
Wallace, who has been a prosecutor in the district attorney’s office since 2022 and chief deputy since August, filed soon afterwards — as did Benfield.
Danforth’s four years in office was marked by office turmoil and turnover, public clashes with county commissioners, and a federal lawsuit by a former deputy district attorney. Both Wallace and Benfield said they would work to change that.
But Wallace’s election win was overshadowed with word this week that three of six deputy district attorneys in the office were leaving for other jobs this month and next. The office already had two prosecutor vacancies.
Two of the three departing prosecutors – Hollie Boggess and Carly Cannon – said they notified Danforth before the election and that their departures were due to better pay, lower caseloads and more affordable housing elsewhere.
Both said they had high expectations for Wallace as district attorney and hoped the county would study and then increase pay for attorneys in the office.
“It’s difficult to justify working here when one can be paid a higher salary elsewhere with lower housing costs and an equivalent or smaller caseload,” Boggess said in an email to YachatsNews. “Requests to rectify pay issues have been either flat out denied by the Board of Commissioners or have sat pending for months on end with no progress.”
Boggess, who was hired in 2018, is the second-longest serving prosecutor in the district attorney’s office. As of December her salary was $97,654 a year, according to county records. She is leaving at the end of June.
Cannon was hired 10 months ago after finishing law school, had a salary of $76,784 and is leaving May 31. The third departing attorney, Jessica Gordon, was hired in 2022 and was being paid $94,800 a year, according to county records.
In their campaigns, both Wallace and Benfield said hiring and retaining prosecutors in the district attorney’s office was a critical issue. While there has been higher-than-usual turnover during Danforth’s three years in office, both Boggess and Cannon said in emails to YachatsNews that it was lower pay, the high number of cases they were handling and high housing costs that led them to new jobs.
“Unfortunately, Lincoln County lacks the ability to maintain and recruit deputy district attorneys due to its low salaries and high cost of living,” Cannon said in an email. “As a result, the district attorney’s office is short-staffed and means we each carry a much heavier caseload than even larger counties.”
Cannon said the salary in her new job is $25,000 more, with a slightly lighter caseload and she will be “paying hundreds of dollars less in rent than I do in Lincoln County.”
“No one chooses to work in the public sector with the goal of getting rich — but we do wish to be valued for our work,” Cannon said.
Deputy district attorneys in Lincoln County are members of employee unions. Both Boggess and Cannon urged the county to study prosecutor pay in Oregon and raise salaries to more easily attract and retain attorneys.
The county started its budget deliberations this week, with departments asked to lower their overall requests by three percent from current levels. Danforth’s proposed budget is $2.77 million, a four percent decrease from the current budget — but with a proposed 2 percent salary increase for prosecutors and other union members in the office.
“I have full faith that Jenna Wallace will do a wonderful job running the office with the resources she has available to her,” Boggess said. “I hope the commissioners work with her to make sure that incoming deputy district attorneys are offered salaries that will entice them to make Lincoln County a home and not just a stop on the way to a higher paying office.”
Wallace did not respond to requests for comment.
