Folks aren't buying products and services like they used to
and the impact of dwindling government sales tax revenues is about to be felt
hard inside the local agency charged with putting criminals in prison.
In an interview this morning, District Attorney Tony
Rackauckas said that a $3.1 million budget gap in the current fiscal year is
forcing him this month to begin furloughing his deputy prosecutors and laying
off investigators.
Under the plan, prosecutors will have 13 furlough
days–essentially every third Wednesday of the month (except for December, when
they'll be two furlough days). The DA says he must also “temporarily lay off”
rotating groups of his investigators for a total of nine days.
“I don't like to do this,” said Rackauckas. “It's not
pleasant. It's not fun. But the money is just not there. What do you do?”
]
For the union representing Orange County deputy district
attorneys as well as public defenders, the answer to Rackauckas' question is
simple: find other cost-saving measures but don't furlough prosecutors.
“This furlough idea puts
unnecessary limitations on the amount of work prosecutors can do,” said Scott
Van Camp, treasurer of the Orange County Attorney's Association (OCAA) and a
veteran public defender. “That may not be the politically correct thing for me
to say, given where I work. But the truth is that I don't believe people in
this county, especially victims of crime, want their prosecutors told on
certain weekdays that they won't be allowed to work. What they do is just too
important to the criminal justice system.”
After hearing rumors in July of potential
furloughs, OCAA
officials presented Rackauckas with a series a counter proposals they
claim
would save the DA more than $1.4 million, the amount of the agency's
$3.1
million shortfall attributed to prosecutors' salaries and benefits.
(The other portion of the $3.1 gap applies to other wings of the DA's
office, including the bureau of investigations.) Those
proposals included forgoing overtime and special pay, agreeing not to
cash out annual unpaid
leave and giving up optional benefits. Union officials say they
don't believe Rackauckas carefully considered their options and
understands the
potential negative impacts of his decision.
The DA disagrees, saying he personally spent half of July considering the OCAA alternatives.
“I
thought several of their items were good ideas and I recalculated the
numbers and offered to reduce the number of furlough days to just
five,” Rackauckas said. “But the union told me it was all or nothing.
In fact, they wanted to explore the idea of employee layoffs with me.
They asked me how many people might have to be laid off without any
furlough days. I don't know because that's the last thing I want to do.”
Van Camp say the furlough plan has unintended consequences.
“Actually, I believe under Rackauckas' plan he's
going to have to pay the prosecutors for working more than 40-hour
weeks and he's never had to do that in the past,” said Van Camp.
The DA doesn't see the union
making any concession.
“I'm not planning to pay any extra overtime anyway,” he
said.
Though the furlough days equal a five percent pay cut for
the prosecutors, their union says the greatest concern isn't about money but
rather public safety.
“The deputy DA's don't like the furlough plan because they
believe they have an obligation to obtain justice for the people of Orange County,”
said Van Camp. “That obligation frequently requires them to work more than 40
hours a week, and they want to be able to work more than that when it's
necessary.”
[
Van Camp and prosecutors say office morale has plummeted.
Rackauckas' response? “I expect my prosecutors to handle
their cases with professional pride just as they always have. If they don't,
then, well, we'll have to deal with that.”
The DA says he offered to furlough investigators for 13 days
also, but saw his suggestion rejected by the Association of Orange County
Deputy Sheriffs (AOCDS), which represents members of the DA's bureau of
investigations.
“I gave them the furlough plan and they didn't salute
either,” said Rackauckas, cracking a smile.
Because the AOCDS contract blocks furloughs and, according to the DA, the union
leadership itself has been uncooperative in negotiations, Rackauckas says he had to
find another solution. He believes he's left with no choice but to implement
“temporary lay-offs” totaling nine unpaid days for each investigator.
Worse, according to Rackauckas, unlike his furloughed
prosecutors, laid-off investigators won't receive benefits, an outcome he
considers a result of negligent AOCDS representation.
“The DA is being disingenuous,” said Wayne Quint, president of
AOCDS. “We're fighting to protect the benefits of his investigators. He's the
one who is trying to take them away.”
Besides, Quint believes, the temporary lay-offs of DA
investigators are “illegal.”
AOCDS and OCAA sources hint that legal actions are being considered.
Said
one prominent law enforcement source who asked for anonymity, “Tony
should just man up, go back to the board of supervisors and demand more
money for public safety.”
“This is all very difficult,” Rackauckas told me. “I understand
that. I'm not saying I've found the perfect answers. But we're going to have to
work together to get through this. It's certainly possible that more cuts may
be necessary later.”
Furloughs for prosecutors, which will match court staff
furlough days, begin on August 19. Layoffs for DA investigators begin on
August 17.
— R. Scott Moxley / OC Weekly
CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.