Duffie Stone requests $1.7M budget bump to combat case backlog and prepare for future
14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office is struggling to keep pace with its caseload — and the area’s top prosecutor Duffie Stone says more lawyers are the only solution.
To combat prosecution delays and years of backlogged cases, Stone is asking Beaufort County Council for a 100% budget increase — to about $3.5 million — at the 2026 budget meeting, tentatively set for April 9. The funding would double the number of prosecutors in his office, which he argues is critical to handling the overwhelming workload.
Last year, county council approved a 5%, or $85,000, increase to the solicitor’s budget, raising it to $1,785,473 — still falling short of their previous budgets of nearly $1.9 million in 2021 and 2022. Although that amount was not asked for by the solicitor’s office, council member Tab Tabernik at the meeting questioned how the solicitor’s office could function without any financial increases.
This line of questioning prompted a meeting with Stone on Feb. 14, where some county council members revisited concerns about case delays, transparency and whether Stone is bringing enough cases to the grand jury.
According to Pinky Harriott, the county’s chief financial officer, the solicitor’s budget from Beaufort County for the past five years has remained largely flat, only fluctuating between $1.88 million and $1.70 million.
Why the need for more lawyers?
The county has nine prosecutors, with three dedicated to the career criminal division, Stone said. There are roughly 2,700 pending cases, which he added is not a stagnant number, meaning each prosecutor is responsible for 300 cases on average.
“The first priority is to get more prosecutors in here to get those numbers down,” Stone said.
On top of the pending cases, over a thousand cases are also coming into the general session. Data provided by the solicitor’s office show that from Feb. 13, 2024 to Feb. 13, 2025, 1,298 cases were added to Beaufort County, with 1,738 closed. Despite closing more cases than were filed, the county still ended the period with 428 open cases.
Cases will also continue to rise as the county’s population increases, Stone said.
The solicitor’s office serves five counties — Allendale, Beaufort, Colleton, Hampton and Jasper — on a total budget of $2.8 million. That funding covers a population of at least 296,888 residents, yet per capita funding for the circuit stands at $9.43 — well below the state average of $14.10.
Beaufort County, home to the solicitor’s office in Okatie, receives the largest share — about $1.78 million, or 64% of the circuit’s total funding. Still, its per capita funding remains at $8.97, below both the circuit and state averages. Jasper County, by comparison, receives $17.59 per capita, despite having a higher poverty rate of 17.2% than Beaufort’s 10% but lower than Allendale’s 36.7%.
What about the public defender’s office?
As discussions over solicitor funding continue, council members are also weighing whether a budget increase should extend to the public defender’s office, which represents about 70% of criminal defendants in Beaufort County.
At the Feb. 14 meeting, Stone addressed the issue directly:
While private attorneys also handle defense cases, the public defender’s office is responsible for the majority of indigent defense in the county. Stone acknowledged that it has its own funding needs and estimated that if his office’s budget jumps to $3.5 million, the public defender’s request could be around $2.4 million, aligning with standard state funding ratios.
“Right now, you’re funding us at $1.7 million and her at $1.6 million, which means I’m already 30% behind,” he said, referring to the split between defendant’s use of private attorneys for a third of the criminal cases the prosecutors charge.
State budget guidelines typically allocate funding based on the 70% public defender representation rate, though exact numbers fluctuate depending on how many defendants hire private attorneys, Stone said.
What’s Next?
The county’s finance committee is reviewing historical funding patterns ahead of the April budget meeting, and council member Tabernik said she intends to advocate for increased funding on behalf of the solicitor’s office.
“I think we all have to move forward,” she said. “If we keep looking back, we’ll never make any progress, and then our residents lose.”
This story has been updated at 4:00 p.m. to reflect new information from Harriott’s office.
This story was originally published February 26, 2025 at 3:30 PM.
