Kevin Ochalla

As many of you know by now, Todd Stroger made some secret and inappropriate moves with the Public Defender budget: he hired another high-paid “advisor” and hid the salary on the Public Defender budget.  At a time when assistant public defenders have been laid off due to budget reductions, this move is unacceptable.

The union has been in contact with County Commissioners about this situation, and some have expressed outrage about this budget slight-of-hand.  Our hope is that the Commissioners see Stroger’s latest move, and many others like it, as a improper disregard for the budget process and the will of the County Board.  We are trying to keep Commissioners’ attention on this issue and on the plight of our office as a result of the layoffs.  We have sent a Letter to Commissioners seeking action.  If anything good comes of this, we will let you know.

The Union is happy to announce a small victory in the layoff process.  We convinced the County this week that they should rescind the layoff notices given to the paralegals who work as readers for our blind attorneys.  This move would have left our blind attorneys without the necessary tools to effectively represent the clients of this office.  While these readers were previously informed that they would be laid off with other employees effective April 29, 2007, they were informed today that they can remain on the job.  Although this victory may be small in terms of the number of jobs saved, it is important to our co-workers who rely on readers to assist in providing quality service to our clients.  Welcome back.

Local leadership met with members of Management this afternoon (Thursday) to further negotiate the involuntary transfers to Civil and 1st Municipal.  Our proposal (see previous posting) was fair and consistent with the Collective Bargaining Agreement: transfer the least senior attorneys in the Office not already assigned to Civil and 1st Municipal.  Management chose not to adopt our proposal, and instead will effectuate their own plan, which the union believes is not consistent with seniority.  For example, Management’s plan creates “safe sites” where no attorneys face transfer irrespective of seniority, and identifies other sites that Management has decided will unfairly feel the brunt of the involuntary transfers.  Because Management’s site selection process is subjective and not in accordance with seniority principles, the Union is unable to agree with this re-organization plan.

Therefore,  those attorneys who will be subject to involuntary transfer should consult with their union steward about filing a grievance.

The pending layoffs will disproportionately effect the Civil and First Municipal Divisions.  Therefore, the Union Executive Board has been negotiating with Management about a plan to fill these gaps in the Office that is fair and consistent with seniority.

Management’s current proposal includes an initial step of posting for volunteers to fill 7 positions in Civil and 7 in 1st Muni.  Under Management’s proposal, any positions not filled by volunteers would be filled by involuntarily transferring the following number of attorneys from the following locations: 4 from Juvenile Justice, 4 from LRD, 1 from FSD, 2 from Markham, and 1 from each of the remaining suburban locations.  Under Management’s proposal, the lawyers to be involuntarily transferred from each location would be the least senior at the particular location. 

This proposal is unacceptable to the Union Executive Board because it would result in the involuntary transfer of lawyers in the Office with substantial seniority of 10+ years.

Therefore, the Union Executive Board formally submitted our proposal to Management on Friday.  Our plan is simple and fair: 1) post for volunteers to Civil and 1st Muni, 2) involuntarily transfer the least senior lawyers in the Office to fill any spots not filled by volunteers, 3) post for transfers in any location that is disporportionately effected by the voluntary and involuntary transfers.  Also under this proposal, any lawyer transferred to Civil or 1st Muni would be eligible to return to their original position when attorneys are returned from layoff, with the most senior transferrees getting the first shot.

While we are aware that some lawyers have been told that they must prepare to be moved pursuant to Management’s proposal, we are still negotiating with Management over this matter and we hope that Management will adopt our proposal in the near future.  We expect to hear from Management on this issue in the very near future.

Currently, the LegalEdge system is in limited use in the Office, mainly at Juvenile, MDD, and LRD.  We are interested in assessing the value of this system, and providing feedback to the Office about the system.  If you have used the system and have some opinions about how the system could work better, please call Brendan Max at (773)869-2423.  We are interested in gathering complaints and suggestions so that we can pass them along to Management during meetings in May.

As a result of the layoff notices received by some of our members, the Union Executive Board is taking steps to make sure that the rights of our members facing layoff are protected and our members are fully informed during this process.  For this purpose, the Executive Board is scheduled to meet with AFSCME representatives next Wednesday to cooperate on issues such as rehire rights, COBRA, and to check the accuracy of the seniority used in the layoff process.  If members facing layoffs have any questions you want us to address to AFSCME, please call Brendan Max at (773)869-2423.  After the meeting with AFSCME, the Executive Board will conduct in-person meetings with members facing layoff to fully inform these members of all their rights and protections.  We will schedule these meetings in the near future.

The layoffs will also likely cause some re-shuffling of remaining attorneys in the Office.  We are aware that there are many concerns about how this re-shuffling is accomplished.  We have begun conversations with Management to try to ensure that this process is as fair as possible for our members and is consistent with our Collective Bargaining Agreement.  We will report more on this as the staffing plan is developed.

 New information:  Subsequent to this message in its original format, we have learned that the first phase of the re-shuffling will be voluntary through the normal bidding process.  By this afternoon (Wednesday, April 4th) or tomorrow, the Office will post multiple openings in First Municipal and Civil.  After the response to these postings is assessed, further plans will be considered if staffing levels are still inadequate.  Therefore, if any members are interested in working at these sites, check the postings and bid.

We have received official notice from the County that the layoff notices that purported to be effective on March 19th are recinded. Therefore, anyone who received such notices in our Office can disregard those notices. If and when layoffs occur in the future, new notices will have to be provided to assistant public defenders.

With regard to when future notices may issue and how many assistant public defenders may be laid off, we are still not sure. As a matter of fact, Stroger’s office has not even finalized layoffs for our Office yet. In a letter dated March 13, 2007, Jonathan Rothstein (Special Assistant to Todd Stroger) stated the following: “We are in the process of finalizing the positions affected by the budget cuts imposed by the Board of Commissioners, and will provide you with additional notice as necessary.” Until the number of layoffs and notice dates are finalized, no one can say for sure what the layoff situation looks like in our Office. While one could reasonably believe that the official budget process which ended in February was the final and definitive word on layoffs in our Office, that is simply not the case. As we have stated here before, as soon as a definitive number and date for layoffs is available, we will report it here.

Throughout this budget process, many numbers have been thrown into the public eye as the accurate reflection of the number of assistant public defenders that will actually be laid off. These numbers have come from Mr. Burnette, from the County, from newspapers, and from other sources like rumor. We all want to know the final and accurate number of any potential layoffs as soon as possible. The sooner we know this, the better. As you can imagine, things would be much easier for the Executive Board if we were able to simply put this issue to rest and announce a definitive number.

The fact remains that a definitive number still does not exist, and we are still actively working to try to preclude the necessity for any layoffs. We continue to be involved in the budget process, working with Commissioners and others who may have effect in the current budget reconciliation process. For instance, on Thursday we requested a meeting with Mr. Burnette to discuss the ongoing budget error reconciliation process. The meeting took place Friday morning. We are aware that discretionary money is floating around that could be used to restore attorney positions, and we discussed this with Burnette, in addition to discussing other ideas for generating revenue that could save attorney positions in our office. If anything good comes of this activity, we will let you know.

While this step in the budget process (the error reconciliation process) is murkier than earlier steps, it nonetheless is a step in the process where layoff numbers are still being determined. We could stop now that the Commissioners have voted on a budget, resign ourselves to whatever outcome results, and save ourselves a lot of headache and work. But as long as we have a chance to save some jobs, we will continue to fight.

As for layoff numbers reported around town, we cannot control that, nor can we respond to every instance of someone claiming that they know the number. When we have a number that is worthy of reporting, we will announce it here promptly.

We have received many inquiries from assistant public defenders about the real number of layoffs that our Office is facing.  In response to those inquiries, we have explained that the final number is uncertain right now, and that we do not want to give out inaccurate information on such an important matter. 

Despite a Suntimes claim several days ago that the accurate number of layoffs in our Office is 10, the fact is that no one knows the final number at this point- not the Union, not Mr. Burnette, and not the Commissioners.  This is because the budget process in not over.  In fact, the Tribune reported the following today: “The new numbers are not final because some figures, such as those for the public defender’s office, still must be fully reconciled, budget officials said.” 

As soon as we have a reliable and accurate number, we will report that number here.  As we have throughout this process, we will continue to fight for every position possible for assistant public defenders.

We realize that many assistant public defenders are waiting to hear the final status of the public defender budget resulting from the hearing process last night.  As of today, we cannot tell you how many proposed layoffs are still in the budget for our Office.  We had representatives at the hearing throughout the night on Thursday and into Friday morning, and we can tell you that the public defender budget and number of proposed layoffs was in flux all night as we continued to lobby Commissioners.  We can also tell you that even as the Finance Committee was readying to vote, the picture for our Office was not clear. 

On behalf of those assistant public defenders that may be effected by the budget process, we called Commissioners’ offices this morning and asked the very question that assistant public defenders want the answer to- what is the definitive number of proposed layoffs in our Office as a result of the hearing last night?  They told us that the number of layoffs in our Office may not be known until next week.  If we receive something more definitive before the end of the day, we will post the information here.

 We can state that the layoff notices that were received by some assistant public defenders this week are not indicative of the possible layoffs in the Office.  Those notices can be disregarded for now.  It is our understanding that if layoffs result from the budget process, assistant public defenders will be separately notified in the future.