First Judicial Circuit staff get a 5% raise, far short of solution to revolving door

The First Judicial Circuit's state attorney and public defender asked the Florida legislature for a $15,000 increase in attorney salaries to prevent high turnover and growing caseloads, but the new state appropriations for the next fiscal year won't provide for that.

According to legislative records, eligible state employees — which include local assistant state attorneys and assistant public defenders — will receive a 5% pay increase to "address inflation and provide a competitive pay adjustment," but that only equates to a few thousand dollars for each attorney.

"A new attorney is making $57,000, let's just say it's $60,000, that's only $3,000 raise," First Circuit Public Defender Bruce Miller told the News Journal. "I'm very appreciative of what they've given us, but we're still going to be fighting attracting new attorneys and losing (current) attorneys."

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As the Legislature increased the base salary of most of Florida's public workers by 5%, it also allowed nearly $21 million in extra funding from the general revenue fund to be split among four entities: the Office of the State Attorney, the Office of the Public Defender, the Office of Criminal Conflict and Civil Regional Counsel, and the Capital Collateral Regional Counsel.

This money can be used to increase attorney salary, but the legislature says it can only be used to increase the salary up to 10% of the total salary prior to the increase.

"Even though the language says at the discretion give up to 10%, I won't have enough money to give everyone 10%, and I don't know what that money I can distribute to the attorneys is yet," Miller said. "I don't know our share of what they set aside."

What was the State Attorney and Public Defender's request?

Prior to the 2023 legislative cycle, Miller and State Attorney Ginger Bowden Madden requested a $15,000 increase in their attorney's salaries to fight their rotating door of attorneys entering and leaving.

“Once everybody came back (from COVID) in a full-time capacity, it’s like there’s other opportunities out there that would allow me to work from home or work from home part time, and they pay a heck of a lot more money than the government,” Bowden Madden previously told the News Journal. “It really had impact on our ability to retain employees.”

District 1 State Senator and Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Doug Broxson told the News Journal previously he was aware of the funding situation among the State Attorney and Public Defender’s offices and his committee would review the requests.

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Why didn't the Legislature approve the $15K increase?

The short answer to why the Legislature didn't approve the increase is because there weren't enough funds to go around, but Broxson said the attorneys' salary increase in 2022 plus the 2023's appropriations would at least help the employee turnover.

"When they came to us ... their concern was that they were losing many of their attorneys to the private sector, because they couldn't compete," Broxson told the News Journal. "So, what the $20 million was, was to give them the flexibility to keep those key lawyers that would otherwise go, so they have the ability to take a portion of that money and negotiate a higher salary."

Miller said he and all of their attorneys are happy and the 5% increase "certainly helps," but he also said they "fell short of (their) goal."

How much money will State Attorney and Public Defender lawyers make now?

According to the State Attorney’s request, the state legislature increased the minimum starting ASA salary to $50,000 in fiscal year 2019-2020, followed by a $7,000 increase in fiscal year 2021-2022. With the 5% increase, the starting assistant state attorney salary will be $59,850.

Miller said his entry-level assistant public defenders are making $57,690. With the 5% increase, they will make $60,574.

Bowden Madden and Miller will then have discretion to increase their attorneys' salaries from the money provided from the pool of $20.9 million.

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Escambia, Santa Rosa attorneys $15K pay raise not in Florida budget