Bexar County’s district attorney’s office currently has 49 vacancies, including more than 30 prosecutors, and a backlog of thousands of cases.

Part of the problem, District Attorney Joe Gonzales said, is his office cannot compete against salaries offered in neighboring rural counties with lower populations and lighter caseloads.

As of last week, more than 10,000 felony cases were waiting to be presented to a grand jury to determine whether charges should proceed — leaving 2,556 defendants sitting in jail while their cases are unresolved.

This step, known as indictment, is a key part of moving cases into the court system.

Until a case is indicted, defendants remain in jail or on bond as evidence is reviewed and charging decisions are made. Once indicted, cases stay in the courts and move forward under prosecution.

The responsibility for both indictments and prosecution falls to the DA’s office, which is managing more than 21,000 felony cases at various stages and about 19,000 misdemeanors.

The staffing crisis is a persistent one. A total of 166 attorneys have left the district attorney’s office, many of them seasoned prosecutors who handled felony indictments, since January 2022, according to data obtained by the San Antonio Report.

In Bexar County, first-chair felony prosecutors salary starts at about $108,000. Comparable roles in Guadalupe and Comal counties start at $110,000 and $124,000.

That pay discrepancy is due in part to Senate Bill 22, passed during the 88th legislative session; it established a rural law enforcement fund grant, which gives counties with populations under 300,000 additional money to raise pay for prosecutors and law enforcement agencies.

“I would guess that prosecutors were getting raises of between $15,000 to $30,000 due to the grant and that’s just something that we can’t compete with,” Gonzales said. “Some of the counties are recruiting our most veteran prosecutors.”

Since the rural grant funding program opened for applications in January 2024, the DA’s office has lost 58 staff members, including 28 prosecutors.

To help alleviate the staffing shortage, Gonzales proposed a budget-neutral fix during county budget work sessions: reclassify 67 senior felony prosecutors into a higher pay grade, raising starting salaries from about $108,000 to $117,000.

The plan would have eliminated several unfilled entry-level positions and redirected that funding to boost pay for experienced felony prosecutors, in hopes of retaining and recruiting staff.

At the work session, Commissioner Tommy Calvert (Pct. 4) likened the situation to San Antonio losing seasoned city planners to other counties.

“The city of San Antonio lost its most seasoned planners and professionals. They were poached into other bigger counties around the state. And I know that, because they told me, ‘We poached your best people in San Antonio,’” Calvert said. “So you have less seasoned people taking longer to process work because they don’t have the experience. I think you’ve given us a solid proposition that I can certainly be accepting of, because you’ve said it’s budget neutral and it will be important for public safety.”

Commissioner Grant Moody (Pct. 3) tied the vacancies to overcrowding in the county jail, which remains overcapacity and relies on overtime to meet staffing needs.

“Public safety is paramount and critical, and you guys are a key part of that in the district attorney’s office. We do have significant challenges in the jail. We’re overcrowded and we’ve had multiple conversations about the backlog and the unindicted individuals in the jail,” Moody said. “So maybe we can approve this budget-neutral request, but we have to make progress on the overcrowding at the jail and the backlog.”

The county has previously acknowledged salary disparities at the DA’s office. A 2022 market study commissioned by the Commissioners Court found Bexar County prosecutors were underpaid compared to peers in other larger Texas counties.

The report resulted in the creation of a new attorney pay table and delivered an average 11.5% raise when it took effect in May 2023. But the study came before Senate Bill 22 gave rural counties additional state funding to boost salaries, which widened the gap once again.

Gonzales’ proposal never made it onto the change log for this year’s budget.

While commissioners recognized the strain on the office and the broader criminal justice system, the budget passed earlier this month without the salary adjustments.

“I’m concerned, because we didn’t get the pay raises that we requested,” Gonzales said in an interview. “We’re going to continue to see our most experienced prosecutors leave the county for better paying jobs.”

While Gonzales frames the crisis largely as a pay issue, others argue the problems run deeper than salaries.

Judge Ron Rangel, a democrat in the 379th Criminal District Court recently formed an exploratory committee to support a potential bid for district attorney in 2026. His announcement came a week after Gonzales said he would not seek reelection.

Rangel said the strain on the office reflects broader cracks in the justice system.

He pointed to the impact of high turnover, where fewer prosecutors taking on more cases leads to low morale and even more attrition.

“It’s cyclical,” Rangel said. “Overworked individuals will burn out, and then you lose even more experience. But I don’t think it’s just one issue. The district attorney’s office, the jail, the courts — they’re all underfunded.”

Rangel also argued that Bexar County must modernize how it handles cases from the start.

“This is not the same county it was 20 years ago. We’re an urban core now, and it’s time for the district attorney’s office to function as one,” he said. “The earlier you can resolve cases, the better. If law enforcement and prosecutors improve communication at intake, you can filter out the weak cases instead of letting them pile up before indictment.”