DA Morganelli's Proposed Budget is Safe

In his preparation for 2011's budget, Northampton County Executive John Stoffa asked everyone to cut their departments by 5%. But District Attorney John Morganelli has asked for 10.26% more next year than he's received this year. In fact, over the past seven years, spending in his office has gone up 168%. Despite this significant increase, and the hard feelings created when he sued Council Prez Ron Angle over an unpaid school board position, the DA is going to get every nickel he requested. He deserves this increase, too.

Morganelli last year suspended extraditions in all cases but "serious" felonies. His office is currently working on twelve homicides involving twenty victims. He has to set aside $10,000 in expert witness fees. He is prosecuting a quadruple homicide in the Northampton area, perhaps the most brutal mass murder since ten people were murdered during a 1763 Indian uprising in that very area. And that was followed by a double murder a few months later in nearby Lehigh Township.

In addition to these recent cases, Morganelli's cold case unit has recently solved a 25 year-old Northampton murder, in which a 16 year-old prostitute (who later did time for another homicide) shot a john in his Northampton apartment. She's awaiting extradition from Florida, where she was arrested.

Morganelli is justifiably proud of his cold case unit.

"It's really been going well," he told Council in response to a question from John Cusick during a budget hearing last week. "If you'll recall, we brought in a part-time non-benefit employee in the County Detective's Office - Detective Egan - who has been working in the cold case unit with the Grand Jury. Now we just recently announced an indictment on a cold case about two weeks ago of a 25 year-old homicide case. The Grand Jury's been very busy all summer. We expect more indictments coming down on old cases in the next few weeks. He has updated all of our homicide investigations. I expect that at least through 2/11, we want to continue it."

In his budget pitch, Morganelli stated he has asked for no new employees and no capitol expenditures. He stated his budget is up only 2.1%, so there is some discrepancy between his figures and mine.

If Council felt that he should cut his budget, the DA stated he would stop prosecuting bad check cases. "The business community relies on us to prosecute bad check cases, and we have a good program. But I can cut that out."

Morganelli also noted that the state, which is supposed to reimburse 65% of his salary, is just getting around to paying for 2008.

Will Angle slice into Morganelli's budget as payback for the mandamus suit earlier this year?

In a word, No. Angle told me after the hearing that Morganelli always presents a frugal budget and he has no intention of paring it down, even with a proposal that he intends to present himself this week.

Below are the expenditures by the DA's office since 2005.

$4,054,000 in 2011 budget.

$3,950,600 in 2010 budget.

$3,655,700 in 2009 budget.

$3,619,500 in 2008 budget.

$3,311,900 in 2007 budget.

$2,479,600 in 2006 budget.

$2,407,700 in 2005 budget.

Updated 1:15 PM: DA Morganelli advises me that the reason for the spike in hs budget between 2006 and 2007 is that the DUI Center was placed under his supervision. That added an extra $500,000 to his budget, which is still $1 million less than his counterpart in Lehigh County.