The Fulton County Board of Commissioners opted against allocating a substantial monetary increase for the county district attorney’s office when finalizing its 2025 fiscal year budget on Wednesday, perhaps bringing a monthslong standoff with DA Fani Willis into its next phase.

The board allocated $39.3 million of its nearly $1 billion budget to the DA’s office, a figure that Willis has insisted will not allow her staff to properly carry out its duties. 

The adopted budget also fails to provide additional funding requested by other justice and safety partners, like the magistrate courts and the solicitor general. 

Capital B Atlanta reported earlier this month that Willis sent a letter in response to a proposed budget to each of the county commissioners in December warning that she would pursue legal action against the board if her office’s funding is not adequately increased.

Willis and other officials fear that insufficient funding to justice departments could cause setbacks in preventing crime and violence; keeping courts operating efficiently; and managing the population at Fulton County Jail, the troubled facility that disproportionately houses Black detainees.

“Without adequate funding to properly serve the citizens of this County, we have to explore legal remedies which includes filing a lawsuit against the Board of Commissioners to seek a budget consistent with the number and nature of cases this office handles,” Willis wrote in her letter to the commissioners dated Dec. 11. “Hear me clearly: if you enact the proposed budget: people will die.”

The district attorney’s office did not respond to a request for comment at press time.

Five of the seven commissioners voted in favor of the budget proposed on Wednesday. The two holdouts — District 3 Commissioner Dana Barrett and District 5 Commissioner Marvin Arrington Jr. — both advocated for a larger budget that would’ve provided more funding to the county’s justice and safety departments, including Willis’ office.

Spending on the county’s justice departments has been at the forefront of budget talks due to last year’s sunsetting of Project ORCA — a federally funded program that had been subsidizing their budgets since 2021 — and November’s U.S. Department of Justice report on the inhumane conditions at Fulton County Jail.

Project ORCA successfully resolved a massive case backlog in the Fulton County court system that was due in large part to COVID-19 pandemic-related court shutdowns. The program enabled justice and safety departments to hire 528 employees, including 133 in the district attorney’s office. By October 2024, just before the project came to an end, the district attorney’s office had retained 55 ORCA hires as full-time employees.

While ORCA was always intended to be temporary, several heads of the county’s justice departments have insisted that the supplemented budgets should become the baseline so that they can operate efficiently.

“By eliminating the ORCA grant, the county is jeopardizing the significant progress we’ve made in reducing violent crime, which ultimately puts the safety of our communities at risk,” Willis said in a statement sent to Capital B Atlanta in October.

Like Willis, Cassandra Kirk, the county’s chief magistrate court judge, has been requesting additional funding for months. She says she requires more support staff so her judges aren’t bogged down with clerical work.

Fulton County’s nearly $989.8 million budget lays out spending for everything from the sheriff and the courts to senior citizen services and local libraries. This year’s property tax, or millage, rate — the county’s primary source of revenue — will not be set until the summer. The approved budget assumes no tax increase.

Rob Pitts, chairman of the county Board of Commissioners, told Capital B Atlanta in October that there would be financial constraints on the 2025 fiscal budget.

“The revenue which we will have to work with will be fixed,” said Pitts. “All of the programs and projects will have to be funded with the available revenue.” 

Still, many departments will receive more funding than last year because though the tax rate remains unchanged, the county will see a revenue increase due to rising property values.

Barrett suggested that the county allocate an additional $14.9 million to its justice and safety departments via a $13.9 million surplus. Instead, the commissioners voted to earmark the additional funds for Fulton County Jail operations and maintenance needs as laid out by the DOJ.

“I would like to recommend that we approve a budget that includes spending for the justice system proactively,” Barrett said before the vote, “instead of reactively.”