Inventive Incentives

Listen to this article

The passage of the Dane County Budget on Nov. 12 included nearly a dozen cost-effective recommendations designed to improve the criminal justice system, but the initiatives may end up decreasing efficiency.

Implementation of the recommendations, which were prompted by a September report from the Institute for Law and Policy Planning (ILPP), is directly tied to potential funding and personnel reductions.

Specifically, four staff attorney positions in the circuit courts are contingent upon sufficient progress being made throughout 2008 on the adopted recommendations, which include judicial calendar revisions for misdemeanor cases and monthly meetings by judges in the criminal division to discuss jail population and case processing.

The budget initiative has put the eight current staff attorneys in a precarious position with half of their fates in the hands of the judiciary.

“Is it frustrating? Yes, but I think we also understand a lot of this is political and we’re sort of caught in the middle, so there is nothing we can do,” said staff attorney Susan Kurien.

The risk-reward tactic is a calculated gamble according to Dane County Chief Judge C. William Foust, who authored an Oct. 30 letter to Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk with revisions to the initial recommendations.

The ILPP report outlined more than 100 recommendations and Falk included 10 “benchmark” changes in her 2008 budget proposal, while a straight reduction in staff attorneys came from a county supervisor.

County judges objected to the cuts and drafted a revised list of recommendations which were ultimately adopted in the final version of the county budget signed by Falk on Nov. 14. The revised goals are more realistic and allow the four staff attorneys to potentially keep their jobs, according to Foust.

“We certainly don’t want to lose any of the attorneys and I think our goals are reasonable and doable,” said Foust. “But saying it is so, doesn’t make it so because we’ll need the help of everyone in the system to be successful.”

Valuable Commodity

The eight staff attorneys currently perform an array of services for each of the 17 circuit court judges including writing and drafting orders and decisions and prisoner litigation.

Each works a 40-hour week and earns around $13.50 per hour, approximately $28,080 annually, with no benefits. Elimination of the four positions would equate to a savings of approximately $131,000 for the court’s $9.4 million adopted budget.

“I think we’re a great bargain for the county,” said Kurien.

If half of the staff attorney positions are eliminated, Foust did not anticipate any additional resources would be made available to offset the firings, which is a motivating factor to do all he can to advance the court’s initiatives.

“If we lose four, the other four are already working full-time so it’s not as if they can just assume more duties,” said Foust. “Keeping all eight allows the judges to be more efficient in moving cases through the system.”

Kurien, who has been a staff attorney since February, said she expected the judges would do all they can to keep all eight positions, because any reduction in staff means an increase in work for them.

“Ultimately, for everyone concerned, if you cut positions you are also cutting court efficiency,” said Kurien. “Who is going to make up those hours? The judges themselves, sure, but that would cut into their time in the courtroom and affect everyone else involved.”

Staff attorney reductions would especially affect those people who represent themselves in court, according to Kurien. She said most staff attorneys dedicate a significant amount of their time researching law and developing arguments for pro se litigants. “By cutting positions, it’s going to negatively impact an already extremely vulnerable class of litigants,” said Kurien.

Quarterly Meetings

Foust will appear before the Public Pro-tection and Judiciary and Personnel and Finance Committees on three occasions in 2008 for evaluation.

He will report what progress the judges have made in implementing changes and if deemed sufficient by both committees, funding for all eight positions will continue, said Jose Sentmanat, executive assistant to Falk.

A majority vote by each committee in approval of the progress will be required in order for funding for the four staff attorney positions to continue, said Sentmanat. Less than a majority vote in favor from either committee will result in the termination of the positions.

The committees are scheduled to meet on March 3, June 2, and Sept. 2 to evaluate progress and authorize or deny continued funding for the positions. If approved, additional funds would be extended for the three-month span after each of the first two meetings and through the end of the year after the final meeting.

Continued funding for the positions after the March and June meetings would be around $31,000 and near $43,000 after the September meeting, according to the budget.

Sentmanat added that even if sufficient progress was not met for one of the time periods, the staff attorneys could be reinstated at a later meeting.

The issue of job security is something Kurien said she and her fellow staff attorneys are concerned about, but that they would carry on as usual.

“Every three or four months will be bit nerve racking, but that said, all we can do is keep doing the job we’re doing,” said Kurien. “Obviously, we’d like to keep our jobs, but if we’re kept up at night thinking in three months we could be booted, that’s not proactively helping anyone.”