Kanawha County Prosecuting Attorney Mark Plants said he is using his degree in economics to better manage his budget. Plants has managed to give raises to his employees without asking for extra money for his budget. His move has attracted interest among courthouse observers.

"My general philosophy is instead of having 10 employees to do a job, have six, pay them like eight and work them like 10," Plants said.

So far, he said, the idea is working.

According to Plants, five attorney positions remain unfilled, but he is getting more work from a happier staff. He took the budgeted salaries of the five positions and distributed the money to current employees.

"By doing this, I am improving retention because turnover has been a problem in this office," Plants said. "We were paying people that were three, four, five years out of law school wages less than what they deserved."

A Charleston Gazette article published Oct. 14 indicated that some officials in other county offices were questioning where the money was coming from because other county departments were unable to give raises during this year's budgeting, while Plants was bucking the trend.

"The county commission's job is to overlook my job, so I can understand there were questions," Plants said.

Plants said he does not believe anyone was angry about what he is doing. He said some administrative heads were rightfully interested because they were unable to give raises to their employees while the prosecutor's office was giving pay increases.

Plants said he is running his office like he would his house: It is all about establishing priorities.

Plants said if someone can free money from one spot to improve other areas without actually spending more money, then that is truly budgeting.

"Through the process of eliminating a few positions, I have actually saved the county taxpayers money," Plants said.

Plants calculates that by eliminating five positions alone he immediately saved the county about $15,000 per employee in benefit costs -- a cost reduction of about $75,000 by carrying five open positions.

Plants said the money was in the budget and through other sources, such as grants. He said it is just a more efficient way of doing things.

"I have two full-time employees that are essentially free to the county through various grant programs, and that is something I do not think former prosecutors have taken advantage of," Plants said.

Plants said he also is saving money by capping the number of days allowed to accumulate as paid annual leave for days not taken for sickness or vacation.

"When we were doing budget when I first took office, I saw that there was going to possibly be $50,000 short in the salary line of the budget, so I took a look at where it was coming from and realized that I had to pay any employee let go their annual leave out of my salary line," Plants said.

According to Plants, the cap was 75 days, compared to the standard 45 days under the county commission's policy. He said it is at the prosecutor's discretion to set those totals.

"I got to looking at other offices' caps and made the change because it just made sense to be on the same page as everyone else," Plants said.

Plants said he will continue to take a look at his budget and maintain his philosophy to save taxpayer dollars while producing quality work in his office.

"I'm not spending less because my budget's bottom line remains the same; I'm just saving money wherever I can and working with what I have in front of me."