D.A.’s Office Seeks $756,000 in Added Funds

While other departments are absorbing salary increases as part of county government’s belt-tightening, the district attorney’s office is asking supervisors for an additional $756,000 to fund the costly prosecution of several capital murder trials and raises granted to employees last fall.

If supervisors agree, the cost overruns would be paid with Proposition 172 funds, a half-cent sales tax that funnels millions of dollars in added revenues to the Sheriff’s Department, district attorney, public defender and probation services. This fiscal year, the district attorney’s office is budgeted to receive $4 million of the $40 million the county expects to receive from the sales tax.

The extra money is needed in large part to offset the agency’s $1.1 million in salary increases approved last October, officials said. Prosecutors and public defenders will receive a 5% raise each year through 2003, an incentive passed to keep local government lawyers from seeking higher-paying jobs in Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties.

Salaries make up $20 million of the district attorney office’s $24-million budget, he said.

More money is also needed to cover the cost of lengthy, complex trials, due in part to tougher sentencing laws for rape, aggravated assault and domestic violence cases, Totten said.

The district attorney’s operating costs are expected to increase even more in the fiscal year that begins July 1. The agency is expected to prosecute two costly death penalty cases, including that of Justin Merriman, accused of the rape and murder of a 20-year-old Santa Monica College student, and of Jose Pepe Castillo, charged with the fatal shooting of a store owner.

Other cases under consideration for the death penalty include that of Socorro “Cora” Caro, who is accused of shooting her three sons last November, and Alfredo “Freddie” Hernandez, who is accused in Castillo’s murder case.