Prosecutors pack meeting to demand pay increase

Daily Southtown

July 11, 2007

By Jonathan Lipman

The roughly 150 Cook County prosecutors who packed the county board room and a sweltering lobby on Tuesday got a mixed response to their demand for a 12.75 percent pay raise.

Commissioner Larry Suffredin (D-Evanston) told them that he was trying to arrange a deal with board President Todd Stroger's administration that would tap unused funds from court settlements and other sources to provide the $8.7 million needed for the retroactive cost-of-living raise. Assistant state's attorneys have not received a cost-of-living raise for three years.

"I expect by the July 31 meeting we'll have an agreement ... that will lead to checks being issued in August," Suffredin said.

But Stroger (D-Chicago) said he knew nothing about that plan and intended to raise prosecutors' wages only after the county sells land around Oak Forest Hospital -- a process he warned would not happen soon.

"I made no promises with dates," Stroger said. "I didn't give (commissioners) a time frame because I didn't know a time frame."

The prosecutors said going three years without a pay hike has put them behind the salaries of their unionized counterparts in the county public defender's office. The average salary of an assistant state's attorney is about $69,000 while it's about $83,000 for an assistant public defender, according to the state's attorney's office.

Commissioner Mike Quigley (D-Chicago) said he voted for Stroger's compromise budget in February only because Stroger promised to act quickly to sell the Oak Forest property and provide prosecutors with a raise.

"A promise was made to me, a promise was made to the state's attorney in front of me, and the president has broken that promise," Quigley said. "If the president's office had not dragged its feet ... that (raise) would be paid."

Stroger said he intends to honor that promise but nothing can happen overnight.

"We have to go through channels," he said. "Like anything in government, nothing happens quickly."

Copyright 2007, Sun-Times News Group

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