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Gap in pay between prosecutors, defenders needs to be closedDaily SouthtownJuly 16, 2007EditorialTHE ISSUE: Cook County pay its public defenders an average of $83,000 a year -- some $14,000 more than it pays its prosecutors. WE SAY: Both of these groups of lawyers are crucial to the justice system, performing equally difficult -- and important -- jobs. The salary gap should be closed. When Lady Justice places the average salary of Cook County prosecutors on one of her scales and the average salary of Cook County public defenders on the other, the defenders' pay is heavier. Assistant state's attorneys are paid about $69,000 a year, according to figures from the state's attorney's office. Meanwhile, assistant public defenders average about $83,000. While the work of the two groups isn't exactly the same, the jobs and the conditions under which they are performed are similar enough that the discrepancy in pay should not be so great. In fact, there should be no discrepancy at all. The public defenders are represented by a union, but the state's attorneys are not, and that situation is unlikely to change in the wake of a state Supreme Court ruling a decade ago that found prosecutors could not be unionized. With union clout at the negotiating table, the defenders make out better on payday. Earlier this year they received a retroactive 12.75 percent cost-of-living raise. The prosecutors, who haven't received a cost-of-living raise in three years, were under the assumption that the county board soon would be giving them a similar increase. But the jury is still out on that. Cook County President Todd Stroger says the financially strapped county can't afford those raises until it receives an infusion of cash from the sale of Oak Forest Hospital. That real estate deal could take months and months to occur. With no raise in sight for now, about 150 angry prosecutors attended a recent county board meeting demanding a pay bump, but they didn't find a friend in Stroger. The board president said the raises will eventually come, but "I made no promises with dates." Commissioner Mike Quigley said Stroger's promise of a quick sale of Oak Forest Hospital and prompt raises for prosecutors was crucial to his decision to vote in favor of Stroger's budget plan earlier this year. Commissioner Larry Suffredin (D-Evanston) is proposing a plan under which the county would use $8.7 million from court settlements and other sources to provide the funds for the raises for the state's attorneys. Suffredin said he expects the plan to be approved by the end of this month, but Stroger sounded as if he hadn't signed off on that plan. There are few workers under Stroger's administrative umbrella who work harder than assistant state's attorneys. They work long hours with heavy caseloads playing a most integral role in our justice system. (Defenders are equally as dedicated.) Compared with what attorneys in private practice make, the state's attorneys would still be a bargain even with the 12.75 percent raises. Despite his cries of fiscal gloom, Stroger has managed to find well-paying jobs for many of his political associates since he's been in office. The least he could do is make good on the raises for people who actually work for a living.
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