Lawyers in DA’s office weigh union

Molly Ball

Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2005 | 11:05 a.m.

Clark County prosecutors may form a union in order to have a say in their compensation, one of the prosecutors involved in the effort said on Monday.

"Over the course of the last few years, there has been a continual erosion of our benefits," Chief Deputy District Attorney Robert Daskas said. "We are concerned about our continued ability to recruit top-notch prosecutors to protect the people of Clark County."

Daskas said representatives of the D.A.'s office were scheduled to meet with county officials this afternoon to discuss the situation.

"We're not saying we're underpaid -- we're just saying, 'Don't take any more away from us,' " he said.

Under Nevada law, local government employees have the right to form and belong to unions.

Any group of local government employees can apply for recognition and collective bargaining power by presenting certain documents to its government employer, according to the law.

One of those documents is a membership list proving that a majority of the office's employees want to unionize. Daskas said that would be no problem: "We have close to 90 percent" of prosecutors on board, he said.

He did say that the prosecutors could be convinced not to proceed with applying for collective bargaining if the county agreed in writing to restore the benefits.

"It's possible they could appease us somehow," Daskas said.

County Manager Thom Reilly, though, said the prosecutors' pay package was sufficient.

"The county supports the rights of employees to unionize, but if this is about wages and benefits it's a little perplexing," he said. "Their average pay is $20,000 more than the private-sector average, and they have a benefits package most folks in the private sector could never achieve."

County prosecutors' average salary is $112,000, Reilly said, while the average lawyer in Clark County -- public or private -- made about $92,000 in 2004, according to the state Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation

The prosecutors' benefit package is worth another $34,000, including health and disability benefits, according to the county.

Reilly said the D.A.'s office has had no problems recruiting the best and the brightest.

"We never have any shortage of qualified people trying to come here," he said.

Under state law, if the prosecutors succeed in getting collective bargaining rights, the county would have to negotiate with their union to set their salaries.

Washoe County has a union that includes all county-employed attorneys -- both prosecutors and public defenders. Reilly said the Clark County prosecutors' attempt to unionize without including public defenders might raise legal issues.

As with Metro Police, whose rank and file are union members but whose sheriff and undersheriff are not, District Attorney David Roger and the assistant district attorneys would not be union members under the prosecutors' proposed arrangement.

Roger, for his part, said he would not get involved with the union issue because of a conflict of interest.

"I want the very best for my prosecutors, but I am also counsel for county management," Roger explained.

Daskas, a nine-year veteran of the office best known for his ultimately unsuccessful prosecution of Sandy Murphy and Rick Tabish for the alleged murder of casino heir Ted Binion, said prosecutors have seen several cuts in benefits.

An altered pay scale means it takes twice as long as before for new hires to climb to the top salary, he claimed. New hires are no longer eligible for longevity raises. And just last week, Daskas said, it was discovered that lawyers in the public defender's office were getting more merit pay than those in the D.A.'s office.

Reilly said the longevity raises were eliminated for new hires three years ago because they were no longer needed to keep county lawyers from leaving for the private sector. The pay scale was changed so that attorneys who do more complex and challenging work are paid more than those whose duties are simpler.

"Someone who handles misdemeanors should not be paid the same amount as someone who handles death-penalty cases," Reilly said.

As for the merit pay, Reilly said that was up to Roger to dole out, and the defenders and prosecutors got the same proportional "pot" of money to allot.

The county has been pressured in recent years to reform the public defender's office, with several independent reports finding that the defenders of poor people accused of crimes were overworked and understaffed to the point of possibly violating constitutional rights.

The public defender's office and the special public defender, who handles cases in which the public defender has a conflict of interest, share the same pay scale with the district attorney's office.

Public Defender Phil Kohn said compared to Phoenix's Maricopa County, where low salaries have led to high turnover, county attorneys here are doing fine, and his office has no trouble recruiting top lawyers.

"The county treats us fairly," he said. "Our salaries are where they should be."

The county has poured resources into the public defender's office of late for good reason, Kohn added. "The public defender's office has had to play catch-up -- we were in crisis," he said.

But in all the attention paid to the defenders' need for resources, prosecutors' funding has suffered, Daskas contended.

"Over the past few years, the county has funded numerous new positions in for the office that defends these violent criminals, yet they've eroded our ability to recruit new hires to protect the public from these violent criminals," Daskas said.