By Patrick J. Fugina

Copies of the proposed Labor Agreement and ballots were mailed to the state’s 288 assistant district public defenders March 8. Public defenders have until March 29, 2000 to vote and submit their ballots to Teamsters Local 320.

Ballots will be counted March 30, 2000 at 10:00 a.m. at the Teamsters Local 320 offices at 3001 University Ave. S.E., Minneapolis.

Public defenders will mark on their ballots whether they accept or reject the proposed contract. A simple majority of those casting ballots will determine whether the contract is ratified. Any assistant district public defender may attend the ballot counting.

The State Board of Public Defense must still approve the proposed contract. But the Board is expected to vote to approve it.

The real question appears to be whether the assistant public defenders will approve the contract.

Members of the Public Defender Negotiating Committee voted to endorse the proposed contract February 11. Most members felt the contract substantially met the goals set by union organizers two years ago when organizing efforts began, including salary equity among assistant public defenders, increased salaries approaching par with union public defenders in Ramsey and Hennepin Counties, guaranteed annual step increases, discipline or discharge for just cause only, and a grievance process.

The salary schedule in the tentative agreement has a salary range of $43,000 for a full-time public defender with no experience to $83,082 for a full-timer with 22 years or more of experience. The entry level salary is a significant increase over the current starting salary of about $32,000 for a full-time public defender with no experience.

The range for part-time public defenders in the tentative agreement is from $32,250 to $62,312 for ¾-timers and from $21,500 to $41,541 for ½-timers.

The salary schedule is significantly modified from management’s initial proposal, which contained 19 steps for each of three attorney levels, totalling as many as 57 steps through which a public defender would have to progress to reach the top of the scale, with no guarantee of an annual step increase.

In contrast, the salary schedule in the tentative agreement contains 22 steps. Public defenders would be an Attorney I for the first three steps, an Attorney II for steps 4 through 8, and an Attorney III for steps 9 through 22.

Each step would represent one year of service. Public defenders receiving satisfactory annual evaluations would be guaranteed to advance one step on the salary schedule.

The annual salary increase for each step would be 2½ percent, except increases at steps 3, 8, 13 and 18 would be 5½ percent. Annual increases under the salary schedule would average more than 3 percent.

Under the tentative agreement, public defenders would be placed on the salary schedule based on their years of public defender experience. This is defined as years of continuous service of at least half-time status as a public defender, including work for the state, county, law firms funded through the Board of Public Defense, or for a state outside Minnesota.

The issue of how to define prior experience for salary purposes was controversial. The public defender negotiators initially proposed to the Board that the criteria be years of attorney licensure. The Board refused to consider this. The public defenders later proposed that public defenders receive one-half credit for up to seven years of law-related service as an attorney, including for law clerking, legal aid, private practice, prosecuting and private defense. The Board again refused to consider this, insisting on the traditional definition of years of public defense experience. In the end, the public defender Negotiating Committee agreed to accept the Board’s proposed definition of prior years of service.

For this and other reasons, there is unlikely to be unanimous support for the tentative agreement among the public defender membership.

The proposed salary schedule significantly raises the salary range for public defenders, guarantees annual raises, and substantially achieves equality of pay for public defenders based on their public defender experience. But because in the past there has been a wide disparity of pay ranges for public defenders and widespread salary inequities, the proposed salary schedule gives significant increases to some and very little increases to others in order to achieve pay equity.

Every public defender will receive a salary increase of some amount under the proposal. In general, the larger increases will go those public defenders newer to the system with little experience, those in the mid-range of experience who had not been given proper credit for prior service, and those in all salary ranges who had typically not received annual merit increases.

The largest initial increases under the proposed salary schedule would be in the range of $15,000 to $21,000 for some public defenders in the mid-range of experience who had been short-changed on years of prior service. Public defenders who have reached the top of the salary schedule or who have regularly received annual merit increases are likely to receive more nominal increases. Although in earlier negotiations the Board had proposed a $10,000 cap on an initial salary increase for public defenders, public defender negotiators had insisted this be dropped and the Board agreed.

A survey of 10^th District Public Defenders shows a wide range of salary increases under the proposed agreement: Of 51 public defenders, 13 would receive increases of less than $1,000; nine would receive increases of $1,001 to $3,000; two of $3,001 to $5,000; six of $5,001 to $7,000; five of $7,001 to $9,000; five of $9,001 to $11,000; five of $11,001 to $13,000; four of $13,001 to $15,000; two of $15,001 to $17,000.

While this is a wide disparity, it perhaps exemplifies the vast disparities of salaries that exist with the current pay scale, where there has been no uniform system for determining past experience for salary purposes or for determining if and when public defenders received annual salary (merit) increases.

Under the tentative agreement, all public defenders would receive a 2½ percent cost of living increase retroactive to July 1, 1999. Then the new salary schedule would take effect July 1, 2000, with all public defenders placed on the schedule based on their years of service accrued to that date.

But the next step -- implementation of the first step increases following July 1, 2000 -- has sparked controversy. Under the Board’s proposal in the tentative agreement, public defenders would not receive their first step increase following July 1, 2000 until the anniversary of their hiring date beginning after July 1, 2001. This means there would be no step increases for a full year from July 1, 2000 to July 1, 2001; in other words public defenders would not receive their first step increase until at least 12 months after implementation of the new salary schedule. Public defenders whose anniversary date is in June would not receive a step increase for 23 months following their placement on the new salary schedule July 1, 2000.

Moreover, the Board’s intention is apparently to increase public defenders only one step following that 12 to 23 month wait. This means, in effect, that all public defenders would be one step behind on the salary schedule according to their actual years of service.

While the proposed agreement is not perfect and may be sluggish during the early stages of implementation, particularly in regard to initial step increases, it holds promise for fostering a system where assistant public defenders will be paid uniformly based on their public defender experience and will be able to count on annual step increases.

During the latter stages of contract negotiations, when management agreed to the proposed salary schedule and guaranteed annual step increases, management negotiators insisted they had no more money available and would not agree to any other method of implementing the salary scale.

While management’s position on this issue is questionable, if the contract is not ratified by the public defenders and management maintains that position, union negotiators may end up with no choice but to seek a strike vote among the members in order to try to force additional concessions.

The tentative agreement doubles overhead compensation for ¾-timers from $1,500 to $3,000 annually and for ½-timers from $1,000 to $2,000 annually. However, the negotiators have not been able to agree on eligibility criteria. A conference committee of part-time public defenders and chief public defenders met recently and tentatively agreed on the following criteria: having a professional space to meet clients, a phone line with messaging capability, and access to a fax and copier. To be implemented, these criteria would have to be agreed upon by a conference of management and the union. However, according to Brian Aldes, Union Local 320 Business Agent, there will be no conference to discuss adopting the criteria until after the contract vote is finalized.

Under the collective bargaining agreement, assistant district public defenders who are members of the union would pay monthly dues equal to two times their regular hourly pay.

If public defenders have questions about the proposed contract, they can contact their district Negotiating Committee representatives. In the 10^th District, contact Pat Fugina at (763) 421-7040, Kari Seime at (763) 422-3350, or Kelly Madden at (651) 351-3700.