Georgia's budget woes are squeezing its criminal justice system.

This week prosecutors statewide began furloughing employees one day each month to meet Gov. Sonny Perdue's mandate to cut budgets by 6 percent.

Augusta Judicial Circuit District Attorney Ashley Wright said she has a short-term advantage.

"I have a vacancy now for an investigator and for a victim assistance person. Those unused dollars are now supporting the office," Ms. Wright wrote Thursday in an e-mail.

Her staff is responsible for prosecuting felony offenses in Richmond, Columbia and Burke counties. Fifteen employees are state-paid. The three counties also fund positions.

Staff attorneys are divided into five trial teams with an investigator assigned to each team. But the office only has four victim assistance positions.

"It's doable for the short term, but it's hard with back-to-back weeks of court," Ms. Wright wrote.

For now, the system should continue to move at the same pace, she said, but things could become difficult if the budget crunch continues into next year.

"In the offices where the furloughs will be imposed, there is a risk that cases could come through more slowly as a result of an across the board impact: the secretaries who receive warrants and create files are out for a day; the ADA who reviews the file is out for a day; the investigator who follows up is out for a day; the Victim Advocate who calls the victim does so a day later. However, I feel certain that the other DAs will do all that they can to continue serving their communities in the customary and expeditious fashion," Ms. Wright wrote.

One problem is that the Georgia Bureau of Investigation is closing labs, she said. The Augusta lab is currently safe, Ms. Wright wrote. Even with the labs open, there are delays getting DNA results, she said.

The Prosecuting Attorneys' Council of Georgia voted late last month to institute the furloughs as a cost-saving measure because employees won't be paid for the days they don't work. It also voted to cut raises, freeze hiring and suspend all purchases, according to the council's Web site announcement.

Toombs County District Attorney Dennis Sanders responded in an e-mail that he is not sure how much the furloughs will affect his office, which is much smaller than Augusta's.

His four assistant district attorneys, in addition to two clerical workers, one investigator and one victim assistance worker, will be a part of the furlough plan. A secretary and two victim assistance workers are paid by the counties and won't be affected, Mr. Sanders said.

"It just means even less time to spend on cases. The immediate effect it will have is (on) morale," said Mr. Sanders, whose office is responsible for prosecuting cases in Glascock, Lincoln, McDuffie, Taliaferro, Warren and Wilkes counties.

The Council of Superior Court judges has reduced its budget by suspending all paid work by senior judges. The state's retired judges have filled in for trial judges at a cost of nearly $500 a day.

The Georgia Public Defender Standards Council, however, balked last month. The Council members refused to institute the 6 percent cut, according to Associated Press reports.

The Council was formed by state law in 2005 to replace the mixed-bag county funded indigent defense system that was viewed as inefficient and in some places broken. But the General Assembly has slashed its budget from $42 million in 2005 to $35 million this year.

The Council is funded by court fees, not taxes.

The governor ordered the 6 percent across the board budget reductions because the state coffers are $1.6 billion in the red.