LAKE COUNTY — More pay for prosecutors will mean less inmates clogging the Lake County Jail. At least, that”s what Lake County District Attorney Jon Hopkins said he hopes the Lake County reclassification committee, a group that reviews county employee salaries, will find.
Hopkins said he has a hard time keeping deputy district attorneys because of non-competitive pay scales. A job description for deputy district attorneys found at the County of Lake Web site, www.co.lake.ca.us, shows that the top pay for a level three prosecutor is approximately $77,924 a year. For a senior prosecutor, one level above that, the highest possible annual income is $81,820.
“People with experience are not applying, because they look at the flier online, look down to the right and see that that”s the most they can make in Lake County. I”m dealing with people who have at least $100,000, and a number of them in excess of that in student loans to pay off,” Hopkins said.
Currently, the district attorney”s office staff is about be short two deputies.
Hopkins said he just hired a new deputy who started on Jan. 4 to fill a vacancy, but he is losing one to another district attorney”s office for more pay and better benefits, and one will need to be replaced during a leave of absence. Hopkins is recruiting, but said new hires are hard to come by and bring a lack of experience with them.
“That means that in my staff of 15 deputies, I will have six people with less than a year of experience. I will have eight lawyers out of 15 who have no felony experience,” Hopkins said.
Hopkins said the pay for a senior deputy, the top step, is five percent higher than the pay for a level three attorney, one level down. He plans to ask the county salary reclassification committee to raise the pay scale for senior deputy district attorneys by 10 percent. If he does not find satisfaction there, Hopkins said he will go before the Lake County Board of Supervisors.
County supervisor Ed Robey, who is a member of the committee this year, said membership rotates and generally includes two supervisors and various department heads.
Hopkins said the committee recommended what he is now requesting several years ago as part of a salary survey. “We thought it was going to be implemented and it wasn”t. There was a lot of focus by everybody in county management on recruitment and retention, and frankly, this is killing me,” Hopkins said.
Robey said the committee did a study of all county salaries several years ago that recommended raises for some but not all. “The county didn”t have the money to do all that in one year. It took us three or four,” Robey said.
Population growth in Lake County means a higher number of more complex cases, Hopkins said, and the ability to handle a complex case requires training and experience.
“One of the things I”ve found over the years is that with lessor experienced lawyers, it takes longer to move cases through. I think that the cost to the county for that is most obviously felt in what it costs to keep people in our county jail longer,” Hopkins said.
Contact Tiffany Revelle at trevelle@record-bee.com.
