BY DAN HILDEBRAN
Eighth Judicial Circuit State Attorney Brian Kramer recently appeared in two separate meetings before Union County commissioners and City of Lake Butler officials.
The chief prosecutor for the six-county region stretching from the Georgia line to the Gulf of Mexico gave his business card to Lake Butler city commissioners during their May 20 meeting. He also briefly introduced himself to those who had never met him before.
“I’ve worked as an assistant state attorney or a prosecutor for about 27 of the past 31 years,” he said. “We represent Alachua, Union, Baker, Bradford, Levy, and Gilchrist counties, so I cover about 4,300 square miles and have about 425,000 constituents.”
Kramer said his office prosecutes around 17,000 criminal cases a year, and he is proud that he won Union County with over 85% of the vote in the 2024 election.
Kramer told Lake Bulter officials that even though his primary responsibility is prosecuting criminal cases, he wants to do more throughout the circuit, including in Union County.
“Sometimes there are things that happen that are outside that scope,” Kramer said.
The official said he is willing to help with any problems in the community that the public is concerned about, adding that while he doesn’t have expertise in all areas, he knows a wide range of people who can help with community problems.
“If you need somebody criminally prosecuted, give me a ring, right? That’s no problem. That’s what I do,” he said. “But if you have a question or a concern in the community that you don’t know who to call, give me a ring, and if I can’t help you, I will find somebody who can.”
When Kramer visited county commissioners in April, he told the group that due to changing technology, their bill to support his office might increase soon.
The state attorney said that each county in the circuit shares the cost of his office’s information technology.
“And the way it works is that Alachua County, because it’s the circuit seat and it has the largest population and pays the largest share of pretty much everything in the office, they pay the budget, and then Union County reimburses them for that,” he said.
Kramer added that although his IT budget has been static over the past few years, the rise of digital forensic evidence will increase those costs.
Digital forensic evidence includes body camera videos, content captured from cell phones, and video from security cameras.
He added that the cost of processing that evidence is bloating his IT budget, which will ultimately impact the budgets of each county in the circuit.
“That’s where the world is going,” he said of digital evidence. “And so one of the things I’m doing is I’m going around to every one of our county commissions to give you my card, make sure you know who I am, make sure you know how to reach, contact me and tell you that this technology is coming and that it will change the cost of that shared IT budget.”
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