Attorneys Reach Accord on Pay Raises

Ventura County prosecutors and public defenders, who recently sued the county over what they call low pay, have reached a tentative agreement that could end the nearly two-year salary fight, officials said Thursday.

“I’m very satisfied,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Gregory Phillips, president of the Criminal Justice Attorneys Assn. of Ventura County. “I think this is the best deal we could get at this time.”

The agreement essentially mirrors a pay package approved last year for county managers. It calls for the attorney union’s roughly 100 members to receive an across-the-board 3% pay raise, retroactive to August. Currently, salaries of prosecutors in the district attorney’s office range from $33,774 for an entry-level position to $79,222 for a senior attorney.

The new pact would also fold longevity pay--annual cash bonuses based on years of service--into attorneys’ base pay, which would automatically increase retirement benefits.

But the attorneys’ union has no plans to drop its lawsuit against the county--which it accused of bad-faith bargaining and attempting to break up the union--until the agreement is approved by the Board of Supervisors.

“I don’t have any doubts that it will be approved,” said Stephen Silver, the attorney representing the union. “But we won’t drop the lawsuit yet. This is still a tentative agreement. We won’t do anything until it’s all signed, sealed and delivered.”

The supervisors are expected to consider the proposal next month.

Supervisor Frank Schillo said he also does not expect any problems with approving the salary contract, which would remain in effect until Dec. 31, 1998.

“I’m very pleased we’ve come to an agreement,” he said. “This has gone on for quite some time.”

Indeed, the union’s pay dispute with the county has dragged on for nearly two years, which prompted a handful of prosecutors to resign last fall to take higher-paying jobs in the private sector and in other cities.

Schillo denied that the union’s lawsuit against the county had forced a resolution: “I’m not intimidated by lawsuits.” Instead, he said, he believed that misunderstandings on both sides had made it difficult to forge an agreement earlier.

“I think the fact that this was a new union and its first time out of the blocks in understanding the negotiation process also created a lot of problems,” Schillo said.

County prosecutors and public defenders formed a union in 1993 after failing to receive a significant pay raise in eight years. The attorneys were previously classified as management personnel.

After the county failed to meet their pay demands, the attorneys argued that they were being punished for organizing and filed a lawsuit against the county in September.

Despite the new agreement, however, the attorney’s union did not receive everything it wanted.

For instance, Phillips said county prosecutors and public defenders should still be given parity with the county’s civil lawyers, who on average make several thousand dollars more a year than their counterparts in criminal litigation.

“I will always be of the opinion that we should have parity,” he said.

One of the provisions of the tentative pay agreement calls for the county to conduct a parity study with other counties to compare salaries of prosecutors and public defenders.

Schillo said if the study were to find that county attorneys were underpaid, this would probably have an impact on future contract negotiations.

“I think we have to look at it from the standpoint that we are competing with other counties for good district attorneys and public defenders,” he said. “And I’d like to be in the range where we are competitive.”