March 19, 2012 – The state Assembly has given final passage to a bipartisan bill that, if eventually funded, should improve compensation and retention rates for experienced prosecutors.
The Assembly passed Senate Bill 394 on a 79-3 vote on Friday, March 16, the last day of regular business for this year’s legislative session, after it unanimously passed the state Senate earlier this month. The Legislature will not return for regular business until January 2013.
If the bill is signed into law by Gov. Scott Walker, it will establish a pay progression program for assistant district attorneys (ADAs) that is intended to improve retention of mid-level prosecutors. However, the bill does not fund the program in the current biennium, leaving that issue for a future Legislature to address in the next state budget starting July 1, 2013.
The State Bar of Wisconsin and numerous other organizations supported the bill, including the Wisconsin District Attorneys Association, the Association of State Prosecutors, the Wisconsin Coalition Against Sexual Assault, the Wisconsin Coalition Against Domestic Violence, the Wisconsin Chiefs of Police Association, as well as State Public Defender Kelli S. Thompson.
In mid-February, legislators introduced bills to create a similar pay progression system for assistant state public defenders, who generally are on the same pay scale as assistant district attorneys. Those bills, Senate Bill 479 and Assembly Bill 648, did not advance this session.
Retention a longstanding problem
In 1989, ADAs were made state employees and were paid under a stepped system that moved employees along a pay scale in accordance with the number of years worked. However, in 2002, pay progression was eliminated.
According to an October 2011 study released by the University of Wisconsin-Madison's LaFollette School of Public Affairs, 246 of Wisconsin’s 330 ADAs left their jobs between 2001 and 2007. The overall annual turnover rate for ADAs since 1990 has been 15.6 percent, but since 2000 it increased to 17.2 percent and since 2005 it has increased to 18.4 percent.
According to the bill's sponsors, nearly 10 percent of the ADAs statewide have resigned in the past year. However, the number of criminal cases filed in Wisconsin from 2001 to 2006 rose dramatically – felony cases increased 16.2 percent and overall criminal caseloads increased by 11.5 percent, according to legislators.
Five years ago, a 2007 state audit revealed that Wisconsin at that time had 117 fewer prosecutors than needed to adequately handle the increasing number of criminal cases referred to district attorneys by local police. The audit showed that between 2002 and 2006, the number of prosecutors in the state dropped 4.4 percent while the number of cases referred for prosecution increased 11.5 percent. The 2007 audit concluded that Wisconsin had 27 percent fewer assistant district attorneys than it needed at that time and that 63 of 72 counties were understaffed.
Continue to monitor WisBar.org and visit the State Bar's Government Relations page for updated information on these issues.
By
Adam Korbitz, Government Relations Coordinator, State Bar of Wisconsin
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