No raises for Prosecutor's Office in 2026 as budget cut by $161,000

Lorain County Prosecutor's Office employees will be going without raises in 2026, and the office's budget has shrunk by approximately $160,000 this year its leader said. Costs for county-provided healthcare and other supplies are up, said Prosecutor Tony Cillo, a Republican in his first term. His more-than $6.1 million budget is $161,000 less than it was in 2025, he said. That means no raises for Prosecutor's Office staff in 2026, and some staffers will be making less because hospitalization insurance costs went up. "We're doing what we can," Cillo said. "Everything is more expensive. Healthcare went up. And not giving a raise means people just make less take-home money." He asked for just under $6.3 million in 2026, the same the office got in 2025. That included 5 percent less in personnel costs than the year before, Cillo said, noting that he reduced his staff from 87 to 83 in the first year by consolidating jobs or not replacing employees who left. He also used some of what his office recovered in delinquent real estate taxes to help pay for assistant prosecutors and staff to do collections. That money has rules on how it can be used, and that's one of the approved uses, Cillo said. "It's certainly not optimal," he said. "Using the money I'm allowed to use in this fashion is like putting a Band-Aid on a chainsaw injury." During budget hearings in November, Cillo told the Board of Commissioners that the county general fund supplemented his office with about $134,000 annually for salary. That stopped with his new budget, he said Thursday. "I know you worked hard on this to get it down to where you should be," Commissioner David Moore, a fellow Republican, told Cillo at a Nov. 24 budget hearing. At the same hearing, Commissioner Marty Gallagher, a Republican, said he thought Cillo's accounting looked good. Commissioner Jeff Riddell, also a Republican, said he hoped for more economy of staffing and that technological advances would help streamline processes. Some cybersecurity funding will come out of elected officials' budgets and be funded directly by the commissioners, he said. County officials requested $96.9 million in spending this year. The Board of Commissioners approved an $89.9 million budget last month. One of Cillo's campaign promises was to train new, young and eager assistant prosecutors to try cases. Paying them less than a competitive rate for surrounding counties won't help retain them, he said. "You get them to a certain point and if you can't meet what their salary demands are and what they can make in other places, you can lose them," Cillo said. "I'm trying to build a stable office where we have people who are working here for a long time." Contact Dave O'Brien at (440) 329-7129 or dobrien@chroniclet.com.