DAs bash budget cuts

With crime levels down overall, the city’s top prosecutors are worried that impending budget cuts will negatively affect their ability to put away the bad guys.
Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown, joined by the city’s other District Attorneys — Robert M. Morgenthau of Manhattan, Charles J. Hynes of Brooklyn, Robert T. Johnson of the Bronx and Daniel M. Donovan, Jr. of Staten Island — and Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget G. Brennan, are urging the City Council to restore cuts proposed in the mayor’s Executive Budget.
In testimony before the City Council’s Finance and Public Safety Committees, Brown said that “Since we [the city’s prosecutors] last testified in March we have made some progress in the budget process. However, we have continuing concerns about our fiscal situation which impacts greatly on our ability to provide the level of prosecutorial services to which the people of this city are entitled to expect and which will help keep them safe and secure.”
Brown reminded the Council committee members that the district attorneys’ budget crisis “began with a disastrous series of city, state and federal budget cuts that we suffered in the aftermath of 9/11. To date, monies we lost following 9/11 - nearly 20 percent of our budgets - have never been fully restored.”
As a result of the cuts, Brown said, partial funding streams have required substantial re-deployment of staff away from day-to-day case handling operations to new assignments.
Additionally, lack of funding, he said, has had a profound impact on the level of resources that are devoted to processing cases at the critical intake stage, to staffing for many of the important new initiatives, including specialized anti-gun trafficking initiatives; the Child Advocacy Center; the felony and misdemeanor drug and mental health courts; the Crimes Against Revenue program; Family Justice Center for domestic violence matters; and others.
“While I recognize the serious financial difficulties that face the city in the years ahead and continued to be willing to do our fair share, it makes little sense to attempt to remedy the situation by cutting public safety dollars to the point where our ability to maintain the gains of the last 12 years is in jeopardy,” concluded Brown.