By Craig Anderson

DOVER — After consulting each other, Delaware Department of Justice and Office of Defense Services officials found themselves on the same side for once.

Pay raises are a necessity to become more competitive in finding and retaining attorneys to prosecute and defend those in the legal system, they contend.

At Thursday’s Joint Finance Committee session, Attorney General Kathy Jennings and Chief Defender Kevin O’Connell stressed that their agencies’ pay-increase scales haven’t changed in 20 years, at a time when the cost of living has risen and the salaries of private- and some public-sector attorneys dwarf those of their staffs.

While a rookie lawyer entering the private sector could make $200,000 to start, a new deputy attorney general is slotted to make under $60,000, based on the state’s budget, they said. Therefore, Ms. Jennings and Mr. O’Connell asked JFC to up overall salaries in their budgets.

“I would love to come before you and ask you to pay the states attorneys anything close to a competitive market rate, but I understand budget realities,” Ms. Jennings said.

“Rather, we ask you to bring us back to a place where we can simply at least keep up with the cost of living.”

Thus, the AG asked JFC for $1.338 million in this year’s budget for pay increases and a roughly $59.4 million budget overall.

ODS is seeking $699,800 for increased pay, pending JFC approval, along with approximately $27.6 million overall in the governor’s recommended budget.

Describing her staff’s mission as a noble pursuit, Ms. Jennings said there’s also the reality of being paid far less.

“There are unique benefits to working at the DOJ,” she said. “Our work makes a difference that you can only find in the public sector. We’ve worked hard to provide our employees with a healthy work-life balance, although the balance has been upset by the pandemic.

“We know that public-sector salaries will never be on par with private-sector salaries, and we aren’t asking for them to be. We are just asking for the employees to be paid fairly for agencies to have a fighting chance in a highly competitive labor market.”

Similarly, Mr. O’Connell said recruiting and retention concerns “(are) of drastic importance and our No. 1 priority in this budget.”

There’s fewer new attorney prospects, as well, due to the Delaware bar examination being canceled two years ago due to COVID-19 and the pandemic hastening the retirement of many lawyers, he said.

Mr. O’Connell, whose office is seeking to add 11 employees to its current 162 full-time staff members, described the path forward as a collaborative effort between his office, DOJ, the Department of Human Resources and JFC “to get the best result for our attorneys.”

Delaware’s judicial branch presented its overview, as well, which included a $106.1 million request in the governor’s recommended budget.

Judicial officials noted their appreciation for efforts to increase state employee salaries and noted that:

• Between fiscal year 2011 and today, the salary of a typical paygrade 10 at 85% of midpoint, according to the paygrade tables, went from $32,426 to $34,671, a 6.9% increase. The cumulative rate of inflation for the same time period was 20.5%; the value of $32,426 in 2011 was $39,062 in 2021 dollars.
• State employee workload and responsibilities has increased.
• The number of generally funded employees statewide (excluding education) in the same period has grown by only 1.5% — or by 1.7% if all funding types are accounted for.

To start his presentation before the JFC legislators, Mr. O’Connell described the mission of ODS, which includes taking a holistic approach to those it counsels.

Also, Ms. Jennings said that “in the DOJ, whether you’re an attorney or any other job in that department, you know you’re helping people in the state of Delaware. But that help comes at a steep cost. We deal with the worst-of-the-worst cases, child abuse, sexual abuse, domestic violence, rape, homicides, etc.

“So we can’t quantify what that means for the people in our office, but they need to be paid fairly because they care deeply about bringing justice in those cases.”

Ms. Jennings pointed to DOJ’s value to the state, which included $282 million in settlements in 2021. That came on a budget of about $40 million, she said. She then described the worth of each DOJ division in support of adding additional staff, calling the current caseload for prosecutors “not sustainable.”

A homicide case-focused prosecutor in Kent County was among the requests. In addition, the AG is seeking to add four positions in the Division of Civil Rights & Public Trust, including two investigators, an administrative specialist and a social worker. Four positions are sought in the Fraud Division, plus a technology enforcement DAG. Also, an elder abuse DAG was among the asks, along with one for workers’ rights.

Ms. Jennings requested an additional special investigator for the Child Predator Unit, along with a community engagement social worker.