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Home My WebLink AboutFY 2022 Budget Presentation (Office of the Prosecuting Attorney)OFFICE OF THE PROSECUTING ATTORNEY FY 2022 BUDGET AND OPERATIONS SYNOPSIS Justin Kollar Prosecuting Attorney Justin F. Kollar Prosecuting Attorney Jennifer S. Winn First Deputy Rebecca Vogt Like Second Deputy Diana Gausepohl-White Victim/Witness Program Director OFFICE OF THE PROSECUTING ATTORNEY County of Kauai, State of Hawaii 3990 Ka`ana Street, Suite 210, Lihu`e, Hawaii 96766 808-241-1888 — FAX 808-241-1758 Victim/Witness Program 808-241-1898 or 800-668-5734 FY 2022 BUDGET AND OPERATIONS SYNOPSIS 1. FY 2021 to FY 2022 BUDGET COMPARISON FY 2021 FY 2022 $ + / - %+/- Salary and Wages 3,034,915 3,041,240 6,325 0.2% Benefits 1,928,968 1,970,040 41,072 2.1% Utilities 16,380 7,210 -9,170 -56.0% Vehicle/Equip, Lease 15,286 15,286 0 0.0% Operations 273,997 274,167 170 0.1% 5,269,546 5,307,943 38,397 0.7% FY 2021 Operating Budget FY 2022 Operating Budget 0% 5% 0% 0% 5% 0%---\ ■ Salary and ■ Salary and Wages Wages ■ Benefits AIL ■ Benefits 58% IF Utilities 0 Utilities An Equal Opportunity Employer 2. MAJOR CHANGES AND/OR VARIANCES IN OPERATIONS BUDGET Reaular Salaries • Position No. 9091, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney, $58,956.00 (0.50 FTE) OPA was notified in December 2020 that State funding for the Career Criminal Prosecution Program (CCPP) funding will be eliminated effective July 1, 2021. This is largely due to a projected $1.4 billion shortfall in the State General Fund for each of the next four years. Hawaii Revised Statutes, Chapter 805, mandates the State and Counties to establish the CCPP and states that the CCPP's "purpose shall be the investigation and prosecution of those person's identified as habitual or career criminals." All four counties across the state are now being forced to fund their own CCPP. Kauai's CCPP practices vertical prosecution, meaning that the same Deputy Prosecuting Attorney (DPA) handles the case from the investigation phase through trial and sentencing. The program requires the assigned DPA to possess specialized skills and experience because the CCPP addresses particularly serious cases. The assigned DPA for the Felony/CCPP has served with our Office since December 1, 2017. He was appointed as the DPA to the Career Criminal Prosecution Unit on September 1, 2019. Prior to joining our Office, he served as a DPA with the City & County of Honolulu, Department of the Prosecuting Attorney, where he focused on prosecuting Class B and Class C felony cases. He is also cross -designated as a Special Assistant United States Attorney under the Department of Justice's Project Safe Neighborhoods. At this time, we intend to fund this DPA at 0.50 FTE in the amount of $58,956.00 while we continue to seek Federal grant funds to support this position. • Position No. 2830, Special Investigator, $81,598.00 (move position to Wages & Hourly Pay account) This position is specifically assigned to the Drug Nuisance Abatement Unit (DNAU), which was established by OPA in April 2017. The State of Hawaii, Department of the Attorney General's Crime Prevention Justice Division grant with the Department of Justice that funds this program expired on September 30, 2020. OPA has supported this position within its own budget in FY 21, taking advantage of savings due to the current hiring freeze on vacant positions. We do not anticipate being able to sustain the same practice for FY 22 and are requesting funding to support this position. This Special Investigator is responsible for the investigation and processing of Drug Nuisance Abatement complaints, assisting in the prosecution of these complaints and raising community awareness on how to effectively report drug nuisance in our community. In addition, he is also assigned to assist with other serious crimes as well as address community inquiries and complaints due to his tremendous community knowledge. This is a contract position with no fringe cost to the County. This position will be moved to the Wages & Hourly pay account with funding provided in the amount of $81,598. • Dollar fund ($1) Position Nos. 2812, 2822, and 2823. Positions 2812, 2822 and 2823 are vacant clerical positions that OPA has been unable to fill, partly due to a lack of qualified applicants prior to the Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent Administrative hiring freeze. The positions are still very much needed for the operations of our office as we currently have a ratio 17 attorneys to 11 legal clerks, where we typically prefer a one-to-one ratio for efficiency and manageable workload. Should we be able to secure grant funding for the above two positions, we would like to reinstate these positions at full funding in the FY 22 Operating Budget so that we could fill the vacancies and provide needed relief to our clerical support section who has had to do more with less. • Dollar fund (1) Position No. 2814 Position No. 2814 is assigned to our most experienced Victim Witness Counselor. This position historically has been funded through Federal and State grant funds. Part of the aforementioned reduction in State funding has also impacted our Victim Witness program with zero funding, which is mandated by the State as well. As a result of these State budget cuts, OPA has had to reduce its appropriation of Federal grant funds to the YWCA Sexual Assault Treatment Center and YWCA Family Violence Center by $10,000 each to allocate a larger share of Federal funding to our State funded positions. Even with the reduction to the YWCA's contracts, we are still experiencing a shortfall of $5,099 for our own Victim Witness Counselor's salary and may need to make further amendments to the YWCA's contract in order to support this employee. We are dollar funding this position so that we may be able to partially fund this position if needed without further reducing funding to the YWCA. We do not intend to fully fund this position using County General Funds. 3. OPERATIONAL CHALLENGES As evidenced in our above narrative, the Covid-19 pandemic has created an immense economic and financial crisis to the State of Hawaii. The Counties are victim to this economic crisis, which we are only beginning to see the impact. For many years, OPA has been fortunate to receive thousands of dollars in grant funds from both the Federal and State government that have allowed us to operate and support positions with limited financial impact to the County. Another impact of the Covid-19 pandemic was an increased workload for staff due to the Governor's Stay -at -Home Order, which resulted in more arrests than normal in an average day and a tremendous increase on attorney and support staff's caseloads while OPA's staff alternated a skeleton crew of approximately 30% in the office for many months (the other 70% teleworked). Certain operational tasks cannot be achieved through teleworking, such as processing custodies who were arrested for violation of the Governor's order, answering telephone calls, and covering court appearances in circuit and district court. This was not an ideal situation for the largest law office on Kauai to operate efficiently and it created a large burden of stress for our employees. Our priority in the FY 22 budget is to maintain and preserve our current staff to the fullest extent. We are not requesting funding for any new programs or positions and our primary focus is to maintain the services we provide to the community. 4. TOP THREE OPERATIONAL HIGHLIGHTS FROM FY 2021 1. Successfully implemented teleworking to achieve maximum social distancing in the office without reducing services to the public. Approximately 30% of OPA employees remained in the office on alternating shifts to maintain services, while 70% teleworked during last year's Stay at Home order. 2. Implemented a new phone directory system, which will streamline phone calls to the appropriate section and result in better customer service to the public, while also reducing the amount of time our support staff spends assisting members of the public with phone calls. This phone directory system was rolled out in March 2021. 3. Reduced overtime account expenditures. Forecasting to end FY 21 with approximately 60% to 70% reduction in overtime expenses as compared with the previous year.