Public Defenders Would Get Raises Under New Budget Plan

NEW YORK — New York City's public defenders could get raises if the City Council gets its way. The municipal legislature's 2020 city budget proposal released Tuesday calls for dedicating $15 million to bringing legal-services attorneys' pay up to par with that of city government lawyers.

The money is meant to address a pay disparity that lawmakers say has fueled high turnover among lawyers who aid the city's poor. But the city's largest legal-services provider says at least twice as much cash is needed to truly resolve the problem.

The Council "recognizes that this inequality in pay deprives our staff of a sustainable living wage and undercuts our ability to effectively represent clients on a daily basis," the Legal Aid Society said in a statement Wednesday.

"However, to truly bridge this longstanding pay parity divide, the City must allocate at least $30 million to meaningfully address the full scope of this problem and its many consequences."

About 1,500 public-service attorneys are not being compensated in line with government pay rates, according to the Council's budget plan.

Public defenders say pay disparities make it harder for them to perform their duties. The Office of the Corporation Counsel, whose lawyers represent the city, can pay attorneys with 10 years of experience as much as $108,000, far more than public defenders can afford, according to Legal Aid.

The pay gap also makes it harder to keep seasoned lawyers on board, Legal Aid says. Nearly half of the attorneys hired to the group's Criminal Defense Practice in 2007 had jumped ship for other jobs 10 years later, a review of retention rates found.

"Increasing the salaries of these attorneys would address issues of high attrition and allow attorneys to live and participate in the communities where they work," the Council wrote in its budget proposal.

The Council's plan would also put $5 million toward eliminating pay disparities between the Law Department and assistant district attorneys. The current city budget also included $5 million for that purpose but the city has only dedicated the money to raises for prosecutors with the least eperience, according to the Council.

A spokesman for Mayor Bill de Blasio seemed to express openness to throwing public defenders a bone, though he said the city has savings targets to keep in mind.

"Defenders are critical partners in the City’s work to preserve and extend fairness," the spokesman, Raul Contreras, said in a statement. "We look forward to working with the Council on their budget requests and weighing them against our mandatory savings target and the economic uncertainty the City faces."

The mayor and the Council must agree on a budget deal by June. The city's fiscal year ends June 30.