Most of County’s Public Defenders Expected to Walk Off the Job Friday : Courts: One-day walkout is planned to protest contract impasse with local officials. But those litigating trials say they will show for work.

Most of Ventura County’s 38 public defenders intend to walk out of court and off the job Friday to protest a contract impasse they and prosecutors have reached with county officials, several courthouse sources said Tuesday.

“I don’t think the county has left us any choice,” said Nicholas Falcone, a deputy public defender who intends to join the one-day walkout.

Court officials predict Friday’s criminal calendar will be disrupted if the lawyers make good on their threat. The public defender’s office handles about 65% of all criminal cases in Ventura County.

“I can imagine that it will have an impact,” Ventura County Presiding Judge Melinda A. Johnson said. “But court has to go on.”

Johnson said she was unsure of the legal ramifications the walkout would have in the courthouse, where attorneys are typically sanctioned if they fail to appear for a hearing.

Public defenders who are litigating trials Friday said they will show up for work, said defense attorney Steven Lipson, who expects to be in trial Friday. But those with arraignments, preliminary hearings and other legal matters are expected to stay away.

“I think things will get continued and people will be inconvenienced, but the county has left us no alternatives,” Falcone said. “We are pretty unified.”

Ventura County Public Defender Ken Clayman said he and his two top assistants are making emergency plans to fill in where they can Friday.

“Obviously we have to plan and obviously it is something that I do not approve of,” Clayman said.

But Clayman said he supports his lawyers’ demands for pay raises. “They have a thankless job and I think their argument is eminently reasonable,” Clayman said.

But at least two county supervisors said it was too early in the negotiations to stage a walkout.

“I think it’s really unfortunate they decided to walk out,” Supervisor Frank Schillo said. “I don’t understand it. Maybe it’s because they’re new to negotiating.”

The 38 public defenders banded with 95 prosecutors to form a union in January. The courtroom adversaries have fruitlessly bargained with the county as one since April to get across-the-board raises for union members.

Negotiators have met 10 times to no avail and talks broke off for the last time Monday. No further bargaining sessions are scheduled.

“There are several sticking points,” said Ronald Komers, Ventura County personnel director. “We are not making much progress in negotiations.”

According to Komers, giving the 133 lawyers the raises they seek would cost the county $2 million a year--money, he said, it does not have.

“Either new sources of revenue or cuts in existing programs will have to be made,” Komers said.

But the criminal court lawyers say they have gone without a raise for three years and are underpaid when contrasted with comparable positions in other Southern California counties. They are demanding that they receive salaries equal to the 16 attorneys working in the Ventura County counsel’s office, which advises the county government on legal issues.

But the negotiating parties can not even agree on what parity with the civil law attorneys means. Komers said the two pay scales are not comparable and that the union’s demand amounts to a 15% to 18% pay raise over the next two years.

“Parity is subject to multiple interpretations,” Komers said.

But union leaders say it’s simple: their civil-law brethren are paid better for the same work.

“We are all county employees,” said Kevin DeNoce, president of the Ventura County Deputy District Attorneys Assn.

Each public defender and prosecutor, who are on the same pay scale, make between $33,700 and $79,200 a year, depending on experience. County counsel attorneys earn between $35,386 and $83,122.

“The [county] supervisors are more concerned with protecting themselves from lawsuits than they are concerned with public safety,” DeNoce said. “We are in jeopardy of losing prosecutors in this office.”

And while prosecutors said Tuesday they have no plans to strike, they issued a harshly written statement blasting the Board of Supervisors for its own compensation plan--and the perks it includes.

“If the prosecutors for this county are being asked to work for 15% to 20% below the market average, then the leaders of this county should be willing to accept a similar cut in pay,” the statement read.

The prosecutors also took particular exception to the severance packages supervisors Maggie Kildee and Susan K. Lacey will receive when they leave the board.

Each will receive in excess of $40,000 when they retire.

Kildee has announced she will not seek reelection to the seat she has held since 1980, while Lacey is running for another term next year. Both were out of town Tuesday and unavailable for comment.

Prosecutors are also miffed that the five county supervisors and their staff members receive a car allowance and are reimbursed for each mile they drive.