Thursday, July 12, 2007
Chicago Sun-Times

If Cook County prosecutors belonged to a union, maybe they wouldn't have mobbed the County Board meeting on Tuesday. If they were in a union, maybe they wouldn't be getting paid substantially less than the unionized public defenders who appear with them in the same courtroom. They wouldn't have a legitimate beef, and we wouldn't be writing this editorial.

But they're not in a union. They tried to form one back in the mid-1990s, but the state Supreme Court nixed the effort, ruling that assistant state's attorneys are essentially surrogates for their boss and thus must be considered managerial employees. As State's Attorney Dick Devine sees it, that decision led to pay disparity between prosecutors and defenders, because the County Board approves the negotiated contracts of its unionized workers as a matter of routine but is more stingy with non-unionized workers. Board members never decided that they wanted to pay public defenders more than prosecutors, but that's what happened over time. The gap between the average pay of a prosecutor and that of a defender grew to $9,100, a disparity that Devine says hurt morale and spurred an exodus from the office.

Some of that gap was closed earlier this year, but then public defenders received retroactive cost-of-living adjustments totaling 12.75 percent that pulled them ahead again. Prosecutors are angry because those same adjustments were also promised to them.

What the prosecutors are up against, however, is a county budget that is bleeding red ink. It was balanced this year only with massive cuts, and Board President Todd Stroger has already dropped hints that a tax increase might be needed to balance it next year. Given the county's precarious financial situation, the board could reasonably argue that it's only being prudent by withholding raises.

We might agree with that argument, except for a couple of things. For one, there's that promise to prosecutors that retroactive cost-of-living raises would be forthcoming. For another, the board awarded pay raises, free parking and other perks to some of its workers Tuesday -- the same day it told prosecutors the county had no more money available. Stroger said be intends to make good on his promise eventually, linking the raises to the sale of land at Oak Forest Hospital, but we can't fault prosecutors for thinking they're getting the runaround.

We don't begrudge the pay going to defenders -- they work as hard, and have as many legitimate gripes, as prosecutors. But the county simply can't hand out raises to some workers and cry poverty with others -- particularly with the already aggrieved prosecutors. It needs to make good on its commitment to them as soon as possible.