Lackawanna County’s full-time guardian ad litem, Danielle M. Ross, made about $111,000 per year, nearly $72,000 of which was paid by the county, between 2009 and 2011, according to a recent report by the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts.

While the AOPC noted that this figure is significantly lower than what has been speculated by some of the GAL program’s detractors, it is drastically higher than what a number of comparably sized counties spend on GAL services in custody cases.