A.G.'s Office Forced to Turn Away Cases Due to Budget Cuts

Budget cuts are hurting the Attorney General's office and its ability to crack down on fraud in a timely manner.

Tuesday, July 6th 2010, 12:41 pm

By: News 9


By Adrianna Iwasinski, NEWS 9

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Budget cuts are hurting the Attorney General's office and its ability to crack down on fraud in a timely manner.

A.G. Spokesperson Charlie Price said the office is down 33 positions in all. That means the agency has less people to investigate and track down all the consumer fraud cases that come through its door.

"When you have fewer people having to do more work that spreads people a little thin," Price said.

Right now, current staff attorneys and investigators are doing the best they can to handle the backlog of cases. Price said with all the recent storms, they've received a bumper crop of complaints to investigate out of town contractors and catch any fly-by-night con artists.

Jerry Streck is an assistant Attorney General assigned to the division and does his best to handle the load.

"Well we manage the cases that we have. The unit right now is down three investigators and one attorney, and despite the decrease in staff the amount of fraud has really gone unchanged," Streck said.

The agency also has to turn state agencies away since they simply don't have the manpower to handle all the cases that come the A.G.'s way. State agencies can turn to private attorneys to handle their cases, but that can end up costing the state agencies and taxpayers more in the long run.

Price said last year state agencies spent nearly $9 million hiring outside legal counsel and they hope lawmakers do something about it when they meet next session.

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