South Florida prosecutors push Legislature for attorney pay. Call it ‘public safety’ issue
South Florida prosecutors in Miami tried applying some last-minute pressure on state lawmakers to increase the pay of staff attorneys, saying Wednesday that they were woefully underpaid, leaving in droves and that shortages and turnover were “endangering the public safety.”
In the past year, the Monroe County State Attorney’s Office has lost nine of its 15 assistant state attorneys, forcing remaining staff to double case loads. Palm Beach County has lost about 80 percent of its applicants. And in Miami-Dade County, the largest office in South Florida, 80 employees have resigned.
The Miami-Dade Public Defender’s Office, where lawyers tend to represent the neediest of clients, has lost 62 attorneys in the past year.
“It’s a public safety crisis,” said Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg. “People want to be prosecutors. They just can’t afford it.”
Aronberg spoke Wednesday from Miami alongside Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle and Monroe County State Attorney Dennis Ward. Also there were Miami-Dade Public Defender Carlos Martinez and a host of law enforcement and business community leaders who were concerned that with attorneys leaving, cases would pile up and crime could become more rampant.
“Justice delayed is justice denied,” said Martinez.
The core of the problem, according to Fernandez Rundle, is the $50,000 starting salary in her office makes it practically impossible for a young prosecutor live in South Florida with its skyrocketing real estate market. And because of the stale salary structure, Miami-Dade, she said, can no longer compete with other major cities for the best young talent.
The Florida Prosecuting Attorneys Association, which represents the state’s 20 elected state attorneys and more than 2,000 assistant state attorneys, is requesting $10,000 per full-time prosecutor. Rundle is asking for an additional $15,000 per prosecutor and $8,000 per staff member in Miami-Dade and is also advocating to raise the salaries of public defenders.
Only three years ago, state lawmakers bumped up salaries to state-funded prosecutors and defense attorneys to $50,000. It’s an amount that Rundle and other prosecutors said quickly became outdated as costs and real estate prices soared.
Salary was the reason promising attorney Citra Joseph, 36, left the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office in October. After eight years and a meteoric rise through the ranks to chief of litigation in the county courts, Joseph said her $74,000 a year salary wasn’t nearly enough to cover expenses for a special needs child that required equipment, therapy and schooling.
Joseph, a former teacher who thought she’d end up in the Public Defender’s Office, has prosecuted cases from DUIs to homicides and worked closely with Chief Assistant State Attorney Kathleen Hoague.
“It was really unfortunate,” she said. “It became about balance and I was presented with an offer I had to consider.”
Joseph now works in private practice with the Louis Law Group, property insurance litigators. She wouldn’t disclose her salary, but attorneys in private practice with her experience can easily make two or three times what she did with the state attorney.
Wednesday’s gathering of criminal justice leaders at the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office comes just nine days before the end of this year’s legislative session in Tallahassee and as lawmakers finish carving up the state’s $100 billion budget.
Currently, the House has a bill that would increase pay for assistant state attorneys statewide by 5.83 percent. The Senate does not have an accompanying bill.
Despite that, law enforcement is apparently weighing on the minds of Tallahassee lawmakers. There’s been a big push to increase salaries of sworn law enforcement. As Gov. Ron DeSantis runs for reelection, he is pushing for a 25% increase — it’s one of the proposals, he said, he’s most proud of.
On Wednesday, Rundle pointed to an illustration that showed the increase in pay attorneys leaving her office could expect. Starting attorneys at the Miami-Dade Inspector General’s Office would make $6,000 more a year. Legal advisors at Broward or Miami-Dade Police could expect to start at $60,000 a year. And, if someone is lucky enough to land a coveted job at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, expect to earn $85,000 a year, said Rundle.
Miami-Dade, Rundle said, recently overtook New York City as the least affordable city in the country when it comes to real estate prices and salary. In fact, she said, Miami was now the 19th least affordable housing market in the world.
“The number of people applying for positions has plummeted. We can no longer compete with other cities... as we once did,” said Rundle. “We’re struggling just to complete tasks.”
This story was originally published March 2, 2022 at 4:52 PM.
