from what i can tell there this was something that wasn't budgeted in the last year and they moved forward anyway and is now asking for that money. and that i think raises a bit of a red flag. i think someone in his office made a conscious budget choice to do something and is now asking for 0 supplemental. i asked for this from 2000 and i did it because i thought it was important to have that prospective. i say that as a former deputy attorney i'm supported in having high caliber law offices.

but with that said i mean those numbers are pretty stark and i think the das office was under supported and needs support so i'm not disputing that but the fact is since 2000 staffing and the public defender's office has gone up and the da handles about twice the caseload as the public defender's office because.

you can't overly manipulate the salary but we're coming in beneath what we had last year. if we zero in on some of those positions we think they serve core functions >> so your argument. i'm not sure i really agree for example. so see that's some of the issue i think your encountering here.

>> we have not brought open a horde of employees under this category we're maintaining employees we've had everyone's been aware of and we're trying to meet target like leaves and furloughs. it just so happens we're not in a position we're going to have salary savings applied in this other category. i hear you loud well, we're truly doing the best we can. it's a learning experience and we're certainly trying to address that. as for the comparison of the da and public defender office let me >> one more thing. i think part of the other - at

any time more atmospheric it's not a little bit apples and oranges by on a general level it's not. about a month ago in this committee there was a supplemental for the understaffed for domestic violence and your boss came in here and went after that pretty hard.

can say that to suggest we're

overstaffed it's not accurate so if you just take that out of, you know, hurry presentation etc., we won't go to the meeting. that's the back story. you can call the da we're not in a fight with him and we certainly think that both offices do something that's important. we truly have a good relationship with him. >> just a followup on some of the conversation we've had and the rejection that was made. i don't think it's quite as clear-cut but as something

similar before we had not an exact discussion it was actually on top of the rejection from the request from the public defender that issue was in the mayor's office. we didn't have that before us so it wasn't a clear up to the time rejection that's being referred to. it's pretty significant that the controller and i've talked to the controller it's very significant when it comes from the controllers off. also, we had a fremgs the budget native as well that we put money forward that the existing staff where their salaries can be made

wool. it's a prebudget districts we make all the time. and to me the fact that we have those salaries built in within the public defender's office we have to make a it whole. but to me it seems moving forward there hasn't been a clear kit discussion on whether we're talking about those salaries being whole in the budget. it's not even a special step we're making we're making this to be made whole we're doing our

basic budget work. >> supervisor wiener. >> i appreciate those remarks i have trouble believing that this committee or this board would seriously consider an appropriation for this department and said i'd like to hire a press person because we should have one please give me a supplemental. i don't see that happening. so again, this is an example. i do appreciate those remarks >> thank you. i wanted some clarification around the positions because the way i'm reading this is those positions were not approved their hired and now we're being asked to pay

for them. there was an amount budgeted and it exceed that amount. so in terms of the positions we're talking about are those positions that were hired in the current focus years? i'm trying to understand because i'm reading one thing in the budget analysis report. i feel i had a different communication with the budget analyst and one with you. for me if there are were money i would expect that the budget office to live within their means. i'm just wanting some claft on

that >> well, i think the best way to answer that is because there's only a single new temporary position we hired this year and that's a 16. week parallel for the on behalf of health corp. the other temporary salaries we are talking are doing things that we believe are essentially to the department. it's not like we ran out and hired a press person. that description is a lot more involved than that. the for the to try to come in on budget is that some days argue salary savings of our permanent employees might come out better for you because you've got

greater turnover staff and that's a realistic expectation to have given our history of, you know, meeting our budget and coming ♪ over a decade long period the public defender has had a supplemental budget and we're not here on an over - >> so last focus year there was no supplemental positions? >> all but the one it referenced. >> i know you really want to turn offer to this other person. part of my issue in reading you talk about efforts to meet the budget and kind of the mayor's

budget it's the - it's not a effort or target to get there you, you have got to get there. tell me how you guys think about that. if you have a budget and you know your going to exceed it regardless you've got to do something about it >> well, in some cases you're talking about long term employees and you don't want to terminate that apply especially, if they're doing something special for the department. as i said we've got some years we're coming at the line.

we have to make a determination to make it on budget. it's not an easy position to be in when those are long-standing

employees. the mayor's office is putting in new rules that if the employee leaves they can't fill the position until there is a rec by the mayors offices. >> thank you very much. i apologize for being late i'm in trial on a homicide case. what i want to express is this. we're not here simple to say sorry we over spent our bublt. we're constitutionally mandated to fill our budget and this is required of us not only in the city department but in the city

mandatory. we're - the reality is when we don't have an singularly staff and i'm coming to you right now because we have 3 investigator positions two, that are vacant now and 2 in a couple of weeks of those cases loads are 2 hundred or so. we're going to be forced to let the mayor's budget office to know this and again, i refer those casess to the private bar not because we don't have the attorney support but the volunteer support. right now, i'm trying a murder

case and in order to prepare a case for trial i can't bring the case >> excuse me. >> yes. i was going to make a statement similar to what you are talking about. i look at this supplemental coming before us and the contacts coming before us in the past we had a long, you know, dragged out relationship about how we fund the public defender and the court and the private bar and the idea about what is caseload is for the public defender and you have work to maintain and you have effective recommendation in the office and a lot of cases have gone to the

private bar. that actually costs money for the city to pay for the services as well to the chiropractor. i actually see that, you know, there's a that capacity that you have to refer more cases to the court and that would actually be an increased amount to the city and i know i have the ability to move the cases over and i'd rather have the cost saving by not doing that. making sure this existing staff is to make sure you have the balance necessary i have the resources necessary to balance our needs around the caseload. i do recognize that you have additional mandate on you now with the court i don't like

using the words e inadmissibility but to stretch our existing resources i'm supportive given the relationship we have between the budget and your office to support this supplemental. we'll very likely see other expenditures we don't want to see because we have other fish to fry as we extend our services >> i'm sorry but i have a completely different prospective. i don't believe for a second that those positions are going to legitimately get the city to

-- i was hoping that argument won't come up because we have a dysfunctional aspect to this service. if you don't do that, of course, the district attorney can't do that he will find ways to manage his equally important robert so he can't declare unavailable so i don't - i understand that you have the power to declare unavailability and to start

spending public money i don't agree with it and i think it's unfortunate and if we need to have some disagreements in the coming years.

every person who needs our representation gets the representation. keep in mind that our office only has a limit number of investigators in terms of our felony cases we have only 9 investigators that handle exclusi exclusively murder cases. and we have one on a temporary leave we're down 50 percent, 60 percent of our staff. who's going to investigate those cases. innocent people are convicted and we can't have a constitution with the right to counsel and at

the same time not provided the public defender the right to hire staff. i'm not able to higher investigators to replace investigators because we start at the beginning of the year with a 6 figure deficit. we haven't expanded any programs and we're taking on more responsibility. and so what i'm asking the board to do is work with our office. i've only come here twice asking for supplemental. so we could keep our staff to

stay on. it cost your city $4.3 million. and this is not a threat. >> you make because of our resources agenda in our office. i don't agree the post defender has an incredible responsibility but to suggest that the da is going to say oh, we're not going to prosecute those cases because we don't have enough staff? >> each of those 3 law offices is technique and that includes

managing the arouses and the public defender makes decisions you're the boss but to come in and say we're going to swamp our budget because we inside to. >> i made it clear from the very beginning that i'm not going to provide substandard representation. i'm not going to say we're going to do that without investigative support. we've got a caseload of every one of our attorneys we've done the same thing for investigators. if you can show me we have too

much staff for our caseload then i'll awe agree but that's not going to happen. all we want to do is we're able to fill those investigator positions. each one of those murder cases is going to cost the city in the range of 1 hundred to $300 >> those positions i don't buy that will lied you to declare inavailability. none of the city or county offices in this state - it's not

unique. you have seen significant staffing in the last few years. i just don't buy this is going to declare inavailability legitimately >> just to patch the whole here to how it could lead to inavailability. it's not the court specialist that would lead it that. it's when our salaries are not accountable for the year the mayor's office is concerned and saying we're not going to let you higher anybody when you have the salary or budget deficit that's what the position - it

>> they say why don't you give us tear salaries so we could handle those cases in the meanwhile. so that's really a policy choice