Prosecutors Protest Pay in E-Mail Blitz

California state prosecutors are blasting Gov. Gray Davis with angry and derisive e-mail for offering them meager pay raises.

Poison-tipped messages started flying over the Department of Justice electronic system Jan. 8, the day Davis proposed his new state budget with enough money for only a 2% pay raise for state employees starting July 1 and about 1% for this year.

And they haven’t stopped.

“It is now clear that we will have to fight for a decent pay increase,” said an e-mail note from one deputy attorney general, who like most of the other 150,000 unionized state workers has gone without a raise since 1995.

“This offer is an affront,” added another.

A third deputy had this take: “The nightmare is not over. It will continue as long as we allow two-faced hypocrites to insult us.”

Marty Morgenstern, Davis’ director of the California Department of Personnel Administration, said he was unaware of the Justice Department e-mail. But he vowed Tuesday to commence talks quickly with state employee unions, and said Davis “knows they’re entitled to raises.”

Republican Gov. Pete Wilson infuriated state employees by denying them raises unless they gave up some Civil Service protections--a condition rejected by the unions that represent state workers.

Davis was elected as the state’s first Democratic governor in 16 years thanks to substantial support from organized labor. But the honeymoon has come to an abrupt end.

On Jan. 8, Davis proposed a $77.5-billion state budget that included a raise for state workers of less than 1% for the current fiscal year, and 2% starting July 1--less than the cost-of-living increase proposed for welfare recipients.

Ever since, Davis has faced increasingly strident protests. Over the weekend, leaders of the 82,000-member California State Employees Assn. voted to authorize a strike unless Davis offers significantly more money.

Such a strike, even for a day, would disrupt state functions. But protests by Department of Justice attorneys, who prosecute death penalty appeals, pose a different political problem for Davis, given that he campaigned as a tough-on-crime, pro-death penalty Democrat.

An estimated $2-billion budget shortfall has placed the new administration in a position where “we can’t spend money we don’t have,” Morgenstern said.

In an interview, Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer, who like Davis took office earlier this month, said he has gathered statistics showing that salaries for Department of Justice lawyers, law enforcement officers, paralegals and others lag significantly behind those in other government agencies.

“Sure, there is a fiscal problem, and a morale and political bump in the road,” Lockyer said, confident that Davis will grant raises. “But it would be unfair that he should be held accountable for four years of bad faith by the prior governor.”

The angry e-mail at the state Justice Department is a spontaneous demonstration of prosecutors’ anger. One deputy used the system to ask for private messages from people willing to strike. Within three days, he received dozens of replies from workers willing to walk off their jobs.

Others recommended less drastic demonstrations. “What if everybody in the [Department of Justice] sent a copy of every legal document he/she created to the governor’s office, to illustrate how much work we do?” said one deputy.

Deputy Atty. Gen. Shawn McGahey of the Los Angeles office took a sarcastic approach. “Yippee!” she wrote on the day Davis released his budget. “I feel like a waitress who just received a 1-cent tip after flawlessly serving a gourmet meal.”

McGahey, who is handling three death penalty cases for the state, is paid about $72,000 a year, less than the $84,000 she was offered by a New York law firm when she graduated from law school seven years ago.

McGahey said in an interview that she didn’t go to work for the state attorney general’s office to make big bucks. Still, the office in earlier years was seen as a premier place to work for young lawyers who wanted to be prosecutors.

These days, the lagging pay is prompting lawyers to think about leaving. A 20-year state prosecutor makes as much as $45,000 less than a Los Angeles County deputy district attorney with comparable experience, a recent survey shows.

“We try to convince each other how lofty and smart we are,” a veteran deputy attorney general wrote in an e-mail. “But we are living on the capital accumulated and invested by predecessors. . . . Am I being too harsh? Look around. A topped-out career genius in this shop now is paid about what a first-year [lawyer] gets in a good firm in nearly any big city in the country.”

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Wage Comparisons

How lawyers’ earnings generally compare in Los Angeles:

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JOB ENTRY ADVANCED Deputy Atty. Gen. $38,400-$48,540 $69,120-$83,628 L.A. County Deputy D.A. $44,248-$49,276 $77,182-$101,221 Deputy L.A. City Atty. $46,354-$61,867 $94,127-$109,056 Asst. U.S. Atty. $40,594-$66,682 $70,433-$105,622 Large private firm $79,000-$91,000 $86,000-$115,000

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Note: For private law firms in Los Angeles, the advanced category would be a fourth-year associate and carry a bonus of $12,000 to $42,000.

Source: Los Angeles County Bar Assn.