State-funded attorneys would get a nearly $9-per-hour raise under Wisconsin GOP plan
Assistant district attorneys and public defenders would receive a $36 starting hourly wage under a Republican plan approved by the Legislature’s budget committee Tuesday, $1 more per hour than the minimum wage for state lawyers Democratic Gov. Tony Evers proposed.
The proposed increase comes after organizations representing public defenders and district attorneys warned elected officials that Wisconsin could face a constitutional crisis if it didn’t increase pay for those positions, with courts across the state facing severe staffing shortages and case backlogs.
Representatives of those organizations have said pay disparities between attorneys in the private and public sectors are largely responsible for the ongoing labor shortage. The median pay for Wisconsin’s assistant prosecutors and public defenders in 2021 was just over $74,000, far less than the median pay for lawyers statewide of $115,000 per year, according to a Wisconsin Policy Forum report.
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“We recognize the statewide importance of this,” finance committee co-chair Rep. Mark Born, R-Beaver Dam, said Tuesday. “We needed to make historic investments and that’s exactly what the Republican Legislature is doing.”
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Evers proposed in his two-year budget spending an additional $67 million on state-funded attorneys’ offices, using about half that amount to raise the starting hourly wages for assistant district attorneys and assistant public defenders from $27.24 to $35.
Evers’ requested pay bump was a small portion of the $104 billion budget proposal he unveiled in February. But as Republicans began rewriting the budget, Evers said in March he might veto their entire proposal if it didn’t include the increases.
The GOP plan, which the budget committee approved unanimously Tuesday, would put $36.75 million toward the $8.76 pay bumps and pay-progression system for assistant public defenders and prosecutors.
Asked to comment on the proposal, Evers spokesperson Britt Cudaback pointed to a tweet from the governor: “Without providing new resources to recruit and retain qualified and experienced professionals, our justice system will continue to face a constitutional crisis.”
Rep. Evan Goyke, D-Milwaukee, called the proposal “an important step for the justice system,” adding that the Legislature has more work to do supporting agencies within the justice system.
The starting pay for assistant prosecutors and public defenders has increased 15% since 2012, but inflation has risen by more than twice as much in that time, according to a Wisconsin Policy Forum report.
Evers has called for similar pay raises for state attorneys in the past, but the Republican-led Legislature lowered the proposed wage increase.
Because of heavy workloads and underwhelming pay, retaining and recruiting public defenders has become a significant challenge, Wisconsin State Public Defender legislative liaison Adam Plotkin said.
From 2018 to 2022, the turnover rate among the public defenders who work as trial attorneys jumped from around 10% to 20.4%, according to the Wisconsin Policy Forum. Total applications for attorney positions dropped in that time, from 355 in 2018 to 168 in 2022.
The understaffing that has resulted from low wages is leading to case delays and courts having to appoint defense attorneys at counties’ expense, Plotkin said.
Republicans on Tuesday proposed giving private attorneys working as public defenders $100 an hour for case work and $50 for travel time per hour, a lift from the current rates of $70 and $25 per hour, respectively. That proposal was also included in Evers’ budget.
Evers proposed spending $8 million to increase the number of assistant prosecutors across the state. Republicans instead proposed spending $486,000 on several positions in Langlade, Oneida, Ozaukee, Kenosha and Sauk counties.
Evers also proposed spending $6.3 million to boost the number of support staff, such as paralegals and investigators, for public defenders. That provision wasn’t included in the Republicans’ proposal.
Evers has called for a 10% tax cut for individuals earning $100,000 or less a year and married filers making $150,000 or less.
The governor’s budget proposal is all but certain to receive pushback from legislative Republicans, who have championed the need to implement a flat income tax in Wisconsin.
Evers on Tuesday also unveiled proposals to cut taxes, increase local government funding, spend more than $100 million to deal with PFAS contamination and support child care providers.
Around a third of students across Wisconsin feel sad and hopeless almost every day, according to the Office of Children’s Mental Health.
Wisconsin’s latest fiscal outlook projects the state will wrap up the current fiscal year with about half a billion dollars more than previous projections.
The two top options being discussed are adjusting the state’s income tax to benefit middle class earners or eliminating the current tax and creating a 3.25% flat tax.
Evers will unveil his formal budget request on Feb. 15. From there, the Republican-controlled budget committee will rewrite the document before sending it back to the governor.
Of the more than 4.2 million licensed drivers in Wisconsin, 770,000 had at least one OWI citation or conviction as of the end of 2021.
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