OFFICE OF THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY SACRAMENTO COUNTY JAN SCULLY DISTRICT ATTORNEY MEDIA ADVISORY. DA Scully s Budget Presentation to Board of Supervisors

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1 OFFICE OF THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY SACRAMENTO COUNTY 901 G Street Sacramento, CA CYNTHIA G. BESEMER CHIEF DEPUTY ALBERT C. LOCHER ASSISTANT DISTRICT ATTORNEY JAN SCULLY DISTRICT ATTORNEY MEDIA ADVISORY DA Scully s Budget Presentation to Board of Supervisors This week s budget decisions will decide if this county believes in balancing the needs of the entire criminal justice system --- or not. These budget decisions as they impact my office will decide the level of prosecution and protection afforded victims of crime and residents in the cities as well as the unincorporated area because my jurisdiction is the entire county, not just the unincorporated area or parts of the unincorporated area. My budget request begs the question -- do you believe in the prosecution of those arrested by the 46 law enforcement agencies in the county which bring me cases? For there are two basic truths about the role of the DA s Office (1) no criminal gets a jail or prison sentence unless he is prosecuted by my office and (2) only my office sees every criminal case. I stand before you today facing a 21% cut in my general fund requirement for a status quo budget. This comes on top of eliminating nearly 20% of my general fund staffing in the last 2 years yes, in the last 2 years, a total of 90 positions have been cut from my office. To maintain a status quo budget ---which already includes nearly a 20% cut in staff over 2 budget years --- my office needs nearly $51 million. The proposal is for my office to receive $10.8 million less. This is a 21% cut in my general fund requirement --- a 21% cut in just one year. How can I reduce this $10.8 million? I ve already identified to each of you in one-on-one meetings what increased costs make up the $10.8 million deficit so I am not going to repeat myself. Here s where the deficit can be reduced: Find funding for the IHSS prosecutor $206,000 DHHS has eliminated funding in their 2011/12 budget for the prosecutor who leads our In-Home Support Services Fraud Task Force Eliminate OCIT cost increase of $101,000 This is a result of the debt service for the OCIT building becoming part of the OCIT rates again this year. The increase is in the category of allocated costs. P.O. Box 749 * 901 G Street * Sacramento, California (916) FAX (916)

2 It s been said that if my office does not pay this amount it could mean layoffs for OCIT. My response is that it is their increased cost which requires me to layoff staff in order to pay this cost increase. So if this means that OCIT has to cut staff then my answer is --- either OCIT cuts staff or I do. It is your choice whether you want to save IT staff or 2 legal research assistants who try misdemeanor cases or one criminalist who analyzes evidence for DUI cases. That is the reality of this situation Reduce Costs for Discovery by $163,000 o Discovery consists of police reports, photos, documents, or CDs of evidence gathered in every criminal case. The defendant is entitled to receive this evidence and the county is required to pay for it for indigent defendants. o We will try to lower our costs some way but it should be noted that based on how the county funds discovery for criminal cases by putting funding in the budgets of CCD and PD to pay my office for discovery, their budgets together will need to be reduced by a similar amount. Reduce Temp Help Budget $200,000 o I cannot eliminate the entire Temp Help budget because temporary employees cost less than permanent employees and I will need to rely upon temp help for my office to function. However, I will try to reduce it by $200,000. Reduce costs for leased space $100,000 o Because we have lost so many positions we are consolidating our space and moving employees into the consolidated space, reducing our costs Group Insurance & Retiree Benefit Savings $150,000 The total of these restorations/efforts equals $920,000 This reduces my shortfall to $9.9 million Late last week, we received word that the money from the most recent Southwest Border claim filed by my office was received. We file the claim on behalf of our office and the Sheriff s Department. As a result of payment of the claim, we received one time funds of $300,000 for our office and we will be transferring $637,000 to the Sheriff. These additional funds reduce our shortfall to $9.6 million. The Board can also reduce some of my deficit to zero on paper. I said on paper because the costs aren t are actually eliminated at all but we will eliminate them on paper. These costs are: Eliminate funding for terminal pay $500,000

3 o We still expect retirements, the county no longer pays for terminal pay centrally, and the money will be spent on terminal pay whether it is specifically funded in our budget or not. Accept CEO estimates of Prop 172 $530,000 o Prop 172 funds received this fiscal year are below what was projected and, it is my understanding, the county needs to collect $3.6 million on top of its projections for the months of April, May, and June to meet its forecast. Because collections are down, we projected less 172 revenue for the next fiscal year. If we budget based on the CEO s projections, then on paper my deficit would be reduced by another $530,000. These two items combined reduce my budget deficit by another $1 million. All of these changes reduce my deficit to $8.6 million. Now, after the reductions I just identified, the only option I have left to close that $8.6 million deficit is to lay off staff. To demonstrate what an enormous task this is, let me compare the situation to last year. The cost of the 44.5 positions unfunded last year was $4.5 million. If it took almost 45 positions to equal $4.5 million, it could take almost 90 positions to equal $8.6 million. So what staff reductions would eliminate the $8.6 million deficit? It takes 7 attorneys for each $1million so $8.6 million equals 61 attorneys which equal 51% of my general fund attorneys. That is equal to all the attorneys who handle cases in my Misdemeanor Trial Unit, Juvenile Hall, the entire Felony Bureau, the Career Criminal Unit, the TARGET Team (Prosecutes gang members and parolees with guns) and Special Investigations. Or, to equal $1 million I could lay off 31% of my remaining general fund investigators. I ve already lost 42% of them in the last two years. Or I could lay off 22% of the criminalists Or, 30% of my clerical staff. Or, 77% of my IT staff Or, 100% of all my process servers Or all my paralegals and victim advocates to cut my deficit by $1.5 million In previous years, I could tell you what I would stop doing or which units would be eliminated but it is impossible to do that with a reduction in funding of $8.6 million. My office cannot function whether we lose a mixture of 90 positions or whether we lose 61 deputy DAs.

4 Some in the audience may wonder why I don t try changes that don t involve staff or make our operations more efficient. My answer is we have already done so. This is what we have done: We eliminated a state mandated function our Child Abduction Unit which recovered children from all over the United States and some foreign countries when they were removed from Sacramento County in violation of the court s custody orders. We tried to run my misdemeanor trial unit the unit that tries DUI cases and minor assaults -- with volunteer attorneys. While those volunteers helped tremendously misdemeanor trials this year increased by 100% as compared to the same period for last fiscal year. While with volunteers we had about the same number of full time equivalents for the year [FTEs], we handled two times the number of trials. We eliminated the Community Prosecution Unit one prosecutor remains, working only in the downtown area of Sacramento because that position is paid for by the Downtown Partnership and the City of Sacramento We eliminated the Non-Sufficient Funds Unit otherwise known as the bad check program. We reduced the staffing in every unit with general funding, including Homicides and Gangs. We have already eliminated nearly 20% of my total general fund staff, 20% of my general fund deputy DAs, and 42% of my general fund investigators Although Victim Assistance is now a constitutionally mandated function we had to reduce the level of victim services so that fewer victims receive the assistance of a victim advocate and each victim advocate is required to assist a greater number of victims and victim family members. We have changed our filing standards o We require cops to arrest certain misdemeanors as infractions o We divert more misdemeanors out of the criminal justice system o We file more cases as violation of probation cases instead of new cases, and o We require increased amounts of illegal drugs before drug cases are filed. What has this accomplished for the citizens of this county your constituents? It has shifted to the cops the burden of helping parents whose kids have been taken by people with no custody rights officers who haven t been trained to do this work and cannot do what DA staff did. It has forced us to lower plea bargain offers in misdemeanors in order to get cases out of the system as soon as possible. But even with these changes, our office tried more than twice as many misdemeanor trials as the previous year for the same period. In other words, offering lighter sentences didn t reduce the number of cases to be tried.

5 We have also had to resolve serious cases cases involving murders and shootings for lower sentences because we didn t have enough investigators or process servers to find key witnesses and get them to court. We ve also declined to investigate cases which would have been handled by our Special Investigations Unit cases regarding local agencies where there are allegations of major fraud or embezzlement or official misconduct. We just don t have the staff to handle these cases. We have had to delay or have just plain been unable to provide the services to victims which are guaranteed by our constitution (Marsy s law). This county has always addressed the requirement of providing criminal defendants the rights they are guaranteed. Well, those who have been victimized by those criminals also have guaranteed rights, and we should be just as concerned with adequately protecting their rights as well. We have tried to cope with nearly 20% fewer prosecutors and 42% fewer criminal investigators. It s ironic that in the last two years even the state with its budget problems has maintained the level of funding for investigators for DHA to handle welfare fraud cases while the county cuts have forced me to cut investigators who handle cases where people are shot and often killed. And with all of these changes to reduce caseloads, what has happened? In comparing the last 6 months of 2009 with the last 6 months of 2010: Cases submitted by law enforcement dropped one half of one percent, yet # of Cases filed dropped -8 % # of Felonies filed dropped -1.8% # of Misdemeanors filed -11% # of Violation of Probation cases increased +72% The changes are all consistent with changes we made in DA operations because overall the number of cases submitted to my office by law enforcement agencies only declined negligibly by half of one percent. The only way my staff could cope with the same number of cases after losing 44 positions last June was to prosecute fewer cases. My point is this ---- we have challenged ourselves to be innovative and try new methods of operation; we have eliminated functions that don t involve crimes of violence, and we have used efficiencies that benefit our office and other agencies in the criminal justice system. All of my staff has worked to absorb the work previously done by the 90 positions that were eliminated the last two years. And to my entire staff, I publicly express my deep appreciation for all they have taken on. But at some point innovation, efficiency, and yes increased workloads aren t enough. Today is that day. Victims of crime don t care whether they are victimized in a city or in the unincorporated area. They only care that the people who victimize them are punished. All of our citizens want to feel safe in their homes, in their cars, and in their communities. They won t feel safe if defendants walk out of jail or get off with a slap on the wrist because the DA doesn t have prosecutors to handle their cases. I represent those victims and citizens. They live in each one of your districts and in every city in this county. I m the only official in this county who represents them all.

6 I am not unmindful of the fact that for every additional dollar you give my office, that is a dollar that doesn t go to another county department or may be taken away from another county department. I know that and I would be remiss if I did not publicly acknowledge that to you and to my fellow department heads. However, prosecutors are unique. As prosecutors, we stand up every day in court and say we represent the People of the State of California. As one court has said, representing the People means: The prosecutor, however, enters a courtroom to speak for the People, and not just some of the People. The prosecutor speaks not solely for the victim, or the police, or those who support them, but for all the People. That body of The People includes the defendant and his family and those who care about him. It also includes the vast majority of citizens who know nothing about a particular case, but who give over to the prosecutor the authority to seek a just result in their name. With a deficit of $8.6 million there can be no just results.