SMITHFIELD — In the end, county commissioners said they would not punish District Attorney Susan Doyle for the state’s failure to sufficiently fund her office.

“She’s in dire straights right now, and our citizens are suffering from it, so let’s solve that problem with the money we got for COVID,” said Commissioner Ted Godwin.

Doyle’s problem is twofold. One, she has a backlog of cases that began building when the courts shut down for several weeks in 2020 because of COVID-19. Two, she needs to enforce social distancing and other safety protocols now that court sessions have resumed.

To help with the latter problem, her office has deployed a check-in system that takes place in the courthouse atrium, Doyle said,

But it’s labor-intensive, the DA said. “I literally have to pull almost every single one of my staff members down to the atrium to help with that check-in process,” she told commissioners. “It is very, very difficult to handle those days. I need as much help as I can get.”

Doyle’s solution is to use county dollars to continue employing an extra prosecutor and legal assistant she had paid with state dollars until those ran out. After a lengthy debate, the board endorsed her solution.

Only Commissioner Fred Smith Jr. was opposed to Doyle’s request for county dollars. In short, he said it wasn’t the county’s job to fund the District Attorney’s Office.

“Your office is a state agency,” Smith told Doyle. “It’s funded by the state, and it is the responsibility of the state to fund your office.”

Like Johnston County, the State of North Carolina received federal dollars to soften the blow of COVID-19 on government revenues, Smith noted. “They’ve got millions of dollars laying around,” he said.

The state can afford to sufficiently fund Doyle’s office but has chosen not to, Smith said. “The state has the money,” he said. “They just didn’t use the money to fund this office.”

If commissioners granted Doyle’s request, they would be making Johnston residents pay twice for the District Attorney’s Office, Smith said. “The Johnston County citizens who have elected me and my other commissioners have paid once through their income tax to fund your office,” he told Doyle. “Now what you’re asking is that we, as commissioners, ask them to fund it a second time through their property tax. I don’t think that’s fair.”

Smith said the board’s duty is to spend local tax dollars on local needs — law enforcement, new school buildings, water and sewer infrastructure, recreation, trash disposal, and office space for county employees.

“Those are duties that rest with us as county commissioners, and we’re not getting the job done,” Smith said.

Philosophically, no one disagreed with Smith. But practically speaking, Doyle’s needs are real and immediate, and the county shouldn’t wait for the state to meet those needs, said Commissioner Tony Braswell.

“We’re caught in a bind, and there’s no good answer,” he said. “But are we going to take care of citizens or are we going to wait for Big Brother to help us out?”