Baltimore State's Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy says that the 17 percent budget increase her agency is slated to get from the city won't be enough - and that she might be forced to lay off as many as two dozen employees.
Jessamy's pleas for more money have become an annual event, but she says next year's budget is bleaker than ever because numerous state and federal grants are coming to an end in the next six months and no new aid is in sight.
But a spokesman for Mayor Martin O'Malley says Jessamy is perpetuating "a fog of fiction." City funding of the state's attorney's office has increased by almost 70 percent over the past seven years.
"Every year, it becomes clearer that these complaints are more about public relations than about public safety," said O'Malley spokesman Steve Kearney.
Jessamy, in her 10th year as the city's top prosecutor, is an elected official with control over her budget. She has the authority to distribute her office's 211 prosecutors and 180 support staff, such as law clerks and secretaries, however she sees fit.
She said she has been told by the city Finance Department to begin terminating people whose salaries are paid by the expiring grants. And she said the city also has rejected pay raises for much of the office's support staff - something previously approved by the City Council.
"We're not asking for things we don't need," Jessamy said in an interview this week. "For some reason ... people want us to fail."
Aligned with governor
Jessamy has had a rocky relationship with O'Malley and has aligned herself with Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. - without whose support, she said, her office would not be able to prosecute nonfatal shooting cases.
Kearney said the notion that city officials want Jessamy to fail "is just not credible."
"The state's attorney is entitled to her own opinion, but not her own set of facts," he said.
City funding for the state's attorney's office has jumped from about $13.2 million seven years ago to $22.3 million in fiscal year 2006, which begins July 1. That's more than any other city agency.
Jessamy said funding increases from the city have been more than offset by the office's increased workload. For example, 18 prosecutors now review all arrests at the Central Booking and Intake Center and approve of charges in all serious felonies that result in arrest warrants. The office also has had significant technology upgrades in the past few years, said Jessamy spokeswoman Margaret T. Burns.
Jessamy says that because her office has been "grossly underfunded for years" by the city, she has turned to the state and federal government for help. She pulled in $7.3 million in state aid this fiscal year - more than 25 percent of her budget - and has referred to herself as "the grant queen."
However, recent cutbacks, particularly at the federal level, have depleted the pool of grant money. Including Ehrlich's grant of $1.8 million for 20 gun-and-violence prosecutors and three support staff, her office is planning to collect about $5 million in state and federal aid.
City officials have told Jessamy that she relies too much on grants for critical positions and have repeatedly asked her to shift them to the city payroll. But Jessamy said her budget has no fat to trim. "We're already lean and mean," she said.
This year's funding from the city includes a one-time allocation of $1 million that is meant to help begin the process of terminating grant-funded employees, Jessamy said.
She said that's unacceptable. She is asking for an additional $1.2 million - and she wants all of that money to be permanently added to her budget.
The impending loss of two dozen employees is "wreaking havoc with our efforts to get violent offenders off the streets and keep them off through conviction and sentencing," Jessamy wrote in a letter dated May 12 to O'Malley.
Another fiscal problem that has arisen, Jessamy said, is that raises approved for her office's support staff have not come through. City officials approved raises for prosecutors and support staff last year. Prosecutors recently got their raises. But Jessamy said a city Department of Human Resources analysis of the support staff has thrown up a roadblock to increasing their pay.
DHR analysis
The analysis recommended that 38 employees not receive raises and said another 11 should receive less pay, which Jessamy said is "outrageous and ridiculous."
But Jessamy did not communicate her fiscal concerns to the City Council in the traditional way, although council members did receive copies of her letter to the mayor. Budget hearings, which included time slots for such agencies as the Police Department and Department of Public Works, ended last week.
City Council Vice President Stephanie C. Rawlings Blake, budget committee chairwoman, said Jessamy's staff did not call in time to get on the schedule, but that she is welcome to present her budget at the council work session Monday.
