Peck: Failure to fund defenders office likely to spark lawsuits

That was the warning issued on Monday by Gary Peck, executive director for the American Civil Liberties Union in Nevada.

During a public hearing on the budget, Peck said the county’s failure to adequately staff the public defender’s office is threatening the constitutional rights of criminal defendants.

"They aren’t just entitled to a lawyer. They’re entitled to a lawyer who can do a competent job," Peck explained. "I am telling you, you are going to get sued. Period. End of story."

That lawsuit could come from the ACLU or some other entity, and it could come soon if the county continues on its present course, Peck said.

The public defender’s office requested 46 new positions but received only one for the upcoming fiscal year, which begins July 1.

County Manager Virginia Valentine said no department received the number of positions it requested, and many departments received no additional staff whatsoever.

Of 705 new jobs requested by department heads, 50 ultimately made it into the general fund of next year’s budget, and all but 13 of them are in the areas of public safety and criminal justice.

Since 2001, more than 1,200 requested positions have gone unfilled.

"We simply will never have enough money to meet every budget request," Valentine said.

New Commissioner Lawrence Weekly said he saw the problems firsthand during a recent tour of county facilities. "A lot of these departments are strapped. They’re working with the bare minimum," he said.

Peck cited American Bar Association guidelines that call for a public defender to handle no more than 150 felony cases or 400 misdemeanor cases per year. The current caseload in Clark County is 365 felony cases and up to 150 misdemeanor cases.

"They’re not even in the ballpark," Peck said. "They need a telescope to spot the ABA standard."

As a result, he said, indigent defendants are "not getting adequate representation. There is intense pressure to deal these cases."

And the problem will only get worse as the so-called More Cops tax pays for hundreds of additional police officers valleywide. The Metropolitan Police Department expects to add 150 new officers next year alone using the 0.25 percent increase in the county sales tax.

County officials acknowledge that caseloads are high for public defenders, but the same can be said for prosecutors, judges, child welfare case workers and others.

"Do you put more people in the public defender’s office or in CPS (Child Protective Services)? As you can see, these are very difficult choices we have to make," said Assistant County Manager Elizabeth Quillin. "A lot of it is fueled by growth and limited resources available to deal with it."

Since 1997, the county has seen its staffing ratio slip from 3.6 to 2.5 employees per 1,000 residents. To keep that number from continuing to fall, the county needs to add at least 200 new staff members a year, said Chief Administrative Officer Don Burnette.

County Chief Financial Officer George Stevens said this is actually one of the county’s largest hiring spurts ever if you include the 119 new child welfare positions that were added to the Department of Family Services after last year’s budget was approved.

Stevens said the $1.37 billion general fund reflects a 14 percent increase in revenue and a 12 percent increase in spending over the current budget.

The general fund is part of a total $5.8 billion budget for the next fiscal year that includes money to help operate University Medical Center, McCarran International Airport, the Clark County Water Reclamation District, and the Metropolitan Police Department.

Besides the 50 new positions added to the general fund for the coming year, the county will create 177 jobs paid for through enterprise accounts, grants, state and federal funds, and other revenue sources. Of the 177 jobs, 55 are to staff a detention facility for low-level offenders.

Under the overall spending plan, UMC is slated to receive a $41.4 million subsidy, nearly tripling what it received from taxpayers in previous years.

The hospital’s budget continues funding for 10 programs and services recently singled out for possible closure by hospital administrators.

Earlier this year, the county provided UMC with $60 million to offset its 2007 losses. More than half of the cash for that bail out came from the county’s capital projects fund.

The 2008 budget for Clark County also includes employee pay raises that average about 6.5 percent. In general, every 1 percent increase in wages has a $2 million impact on the general fund, Burnette said.

"It obviously affects our ability to hire new people," he said. "When you have a limited amount of money, you have to balance what you invest in your existing employees and what you spend on new positions."

But Peck said what is happening to the public defender’s office and the people it represents cannot be explained away as a simple matter of budget priorities.

"That’s not going to cut it," he said. "What’s on the table now is not acceptable, and no federal judge would say that it is, I can assure you of that."

Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani, who joined in the unanimous vote to approve the budget, said the staffing levels at the public defender’s office warrant further review in the coming weeks.

"There was a request for 46 (positions); we gave them one," she said. "I think that’s irresponsible on our part."

Review-Journal writer Annette Wells contributed to this report.