DA Dow Requests Funding for Critically Needed Positions
Author: District Attorney
Date: 5/23/2026 8:28 AM
The San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors will hold budget hearings on June 8, 2026. DA Dan Dow has respectfully and factually advocated for Board support of his request for additional necessary funding for 5 positions. These requested positions are critically needed for doing the legally mandated work of investigating and prosecuting crime here in San Luis Obispo County.
District Attorney Dan Dow made the following comments advocating for the Board of Supervisors to fund five critically necessary positions in the FY 2026-2027 budget. Budget hearings will be on June 8, 2026. Here is the text of District Attorney Dow's comments at the May 19, 2026 Board meeting:
Chair Paulding, Members of the Board — thank you.
I am Dan Dow, your District Attorney for twelve years. In that time, this office returned General Fund money to the county in nine of the last eleven years – totaling $3.5 million dollars — a record of restraint I ask you to hold in mind.
Out of a $1.01 billion county budget, the DA's Office receives roughly $19 million in General Fund support to prosecute every criminal case for 300,000 residents. Health and Human Services receives $60 million — three times our share — plus $300 million in federal and state funding on top of that. I raise that not to criticize HHS, but to put the disparity on the table.
We have been required to cut 5 full time employees over the last several years of budget cuts. Today I am requesting five positions: a paralegal — none added since 2014 — a restored Victim Witness Advocate, a restored administrative assistant, a restored felony Deputy DA, and a new Elder Abuse vertical prosecutor. Step 1 cost: $857,839 — less than one-tenth of one percent of this county's budget. Government Code and court precedent are clear: underfunding, that materially impairs a DA's mandated duties, crosses a constitutional line. I am not making a threat. I am stating a legal reality — and I am stating it for the record.
Adoption of the County Executive Officer's Recommended Budget without approval of these five Budget Augmentation Requests will materially impair the District Attorney's independent investigative and prosecutorial functions. Consistent with Hicks v. Orange County, Scott v. Common Council of San Bernardino, Government Code sections 25303 and 29601, and the California Constitution, the District Attorney hereby places the County Executive Office and the Board of Supervisors on formal notice that a budget failing to fund these requests crosses from a legitimate fiscal decision into an action that unlawfully impairs the Public Prosecutor's constitutionally and statutorily mandated duties.
This office convicted Paul Flores for the murder of Kristin Smart, prosecuted gang murderers, human trafficking rings, and protected property owners from tens of millions in real estate fraud. We have done this while absorbing an exponential increase in workload — not just from digital evidence and body-worn cameras, but from a wave of state legislative mandates: race-blind charging requirements, retroactive resentencing eligibility, youthful and elderly parole hearings, and reviews of cases that prosecutors and victims believed were permanently closed. Sacramento has added obligation after obligation to our plate without sending a single dollar to help us carry them.
Our mission is to bring justice and safety to this community by aggressively and fairly prosecuting crime and protecting the rights of crime victims. I am asking you to please Fund that mission. I am requesting roughly one tenth of one percent of the Discretionary General Fund. That is about $1 dollar out of every $967 that this county spends of its General Fund. This is to fully fund the prosecutorial functions that protect every one of the 300,000 people that live here.
Before June 8, work with me to find a path to these five positions. I am available, I am willing, and I am asking for your partnership. Thank you.
You may view the video of District Attorney Dow's comments made at the Board here. You may download a copy of the handout explaining the five positions being requested here.
JUSTIFICATION FOR A DEDICATED ELDER ABUSE DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY
San Luis Obispo County is experiencing a demographic transformation that demands a proportional and urgent response from its criminal and victim justice system. According to the most recently published U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey (2024), residents over the age of 65 now number 65,713 — representing 23.3% of the county's total population, believed to be the highest percentage on record. This figure has grown by more than 9,000 individuals in just four years, up from 56,739 in 2020, and has nearly doubled as a share of the population since 2010 when elders comprised only 15.1% of county residents. This rapidly expanding elder population faces acute and growing vulnerability to criminal exploitation, including financial fraud, physical abuse, sexual abuse, mental abuse, neglect, and an alarming increase in cyber scams targeting isolated and cognitively impaired seniors. In 2023 alone, the District Attorney's Office reviewed 284 cases involving elderly victims — a nearly 20% increase from 2015 — while Adult Protective Services received 1,679 reports of elder abuse in 2022, and the Christopher G. Money Victim Witness Center served over 1,100 elder victims annually. Critically, national data indicates that only approximately 1 in 24 cases of elder abuse is ever reported to authorities, meaning the true scope of victimization in San Luis Obispo County is dramatically understated and demands a proactive, specialized prosecutorial response.
The most effective and proven solution is the creation of a dedicated Deputy District Attorney assigned exclusively to vertical prosecution of elder abuse cases. Vertical prosecution — where a single attorney handles a case from the initial filing decision through final sentencing — has been demonstrated to increase conviction rates, reduce trauma on vulnerable victims, and produce more consistent and appropriate sentencing outcomes. This model is already recognized as best practice by the District Attorney's Office in the areas of domestic violence, sexual assault, and gang crimes, and national policy experts have strongly recommended its application to elder abuse cases given their complexity, evidentiary demands, and the unique fragility of elder victims who are often cognitively impaired or dependent on their very abusers. A dedicated prosecutor would also chair the county's First Responders Group, lead training for law enforcement, conduct community outreach to senior organizations, and serve as the county's subject matter expert — functions that have gone unfulfilled due to the absence of designated staff. District Attorney Dan Dow has requested this position from the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors annually for the past seven years, recognizing that the growing elder population and the cascading social and economic costs of unaddressed elder abuse — including emergency medical care, loss of life savings, and increased reliance on publicly funded services — make this one of the most fiscally responsible and morally imperative investments the Board can make in the safety and dignity of county residents.
CALL TO ACTION
If you support the District Attorney's request for this additional funding, please get in touch with the Board of Supervisors. You may do so here: https://slocounty.ca.gov/departments/board-of-supervisors/contact-the-board-of-supervisors
