Philadelphia City Hall building. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM

The Philadelphia court system, the District Attorney's Office, the Defender Association and the City Law Department are all slated to take cuts under Mayor Jim Kenney's latest budget proposal, which was recently revised to reflect the grim financial situation the country has found itself in during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The agencies are facing a range of proposed cuts, and leaders were quick to stress that the process is still ongoing. However, the agencies are bracing for belt-tightening, which could mean delayed tech investments, not hiring new attorneys and putting strict caps on the legal spend for outside counsel.

At the start of May, Kenney proposed a budget that cut nearly $650 million from the spending plan he had initially proposed to City Council in early March. The shortfall comes as COVID-19-related business closures have halted real estate and economic activity, and staggering unemployment has struck a blow to the city's expected wage tax earnings. The plan, announced May 1, proposes spending $4.9 billion, which is a 4.4% decrease compared to the initial projections.

To make up for the anticipated deficits, the spending plan proposes layoffs, tiered pay cuts for city workers and reductions to the budgets of nearly all city services. Police and fire departments, as well as emergency medical staff, however, are not expected to see any layoffs under the plan.

When it comes to the city's justice system, the agency that would see the largest cut under the mayor's proposal is the District Attorney's Office, which is set to see a nearly 20% reduction from what was initially proposed.

According to the proposal, the DAO, which has a budget normally hovering around $40 million, would receive $8 million less than expected. Under the mayor's initial budget, the agency had been set to receive an increase from the $39 million allocated in 2020, but instead the latest budget proposes that the DAO should receive $33.3 million.

The office's spokeswoman, Jane Roh, said in an emailed statement that District Attorney Larry Krasner is continuing to discuss the budget with City Council members, who, she said, "agree that public safety must be a top priority in the FY21 budget."

"Council members know that front-end investments are key to preventing and reducing violence, and that there can be no compromise when it comes to the safety and well-being of Philadelphians in every neighborhood," she said. "Key to that is a fully functioning criminal legal system that holds people who present a danger to the public accountable quickly and efficiently."

Roh also said the office's efforts to reduce incarceration have saved taxpayer money, pointing to a study by Montclair State University, which estimated that resentencing and releasing juvenile lifers was expected to save $9.5 million over the next decade.

"He looks forward to working with partners across the criminal legal system and city government toward making sure Philadelphia puts the well-being of residents first—especially those who live in communities that have suffered from poverty-related violence for far too long," Roh said.

The court system is expected to see only a minor drop percentage-wise in funding from what was initially proposed. According to the revised budget, the First Judicial District is set for a 1% reduction in the revised budget, or a cut of $1.2 million. The FJD had initially been set to receive $117 million.

First Judicial District spokesman Gabriel Roberts said in a statement that, given the severity of the pandemic, news of the proposed cuts was not unexpected.

"FJD leadership is actively preparing to make necessary adjustments that would enable our courts to absorb this loss in funding while continuing to fulfill our responsibilities to the public," he said.

The Law Department, however, is set to see a significant cut, if the mayor's proposal is enacted. The new budget proposes an 11% decrease for the agency, or a reduction of $1.8 million from the $16.3 million that had been initially proposed. The department had been set for a slight increase in the 2021 budget; however, the new proposal would bring the department's budget to less than what was adopted in 2019.

City Solicitor Marcel Pratt noted that the 11% drop does not give the full picture of the potential impact to his office's budget, since compensation for about 100 of the agency's 225 attorneys are funded through other city agencies. However, he said that, if enacted as proposed, the Law Department could see delays in rolling out new legal tech projects and serious belt-tightening for the outside legal spend.

"As we assign work under our current contracts, we're going to have to implement very strict budgets, and probably be more conservative about what we send out," Pratt said, adding that the agency might start including more spending caps in their contracts. "If labor costs go up, the first place to look is outside counsel contracts."

As his office falls within the mayor's purview, his attorneys and staff are facing across-the-board tiered salary reductions, which include 1% for those making between $35,000 and $80,000, 2% for those making between $80,000 and $125,000, 5% for those making between $125,000 and $200,000, and 7% for those earning over $200,000.

On the tech side, he said the office had been looking to hire a full-time e-discovery specialist to help implement the roll-out of new software, but that may be on pause given the new budget proposal.

"A project that's been very important to me since I started has been acquiring an e-discovery platform," Pratt said. "I can't say that's not going to happen, but it's something that's been called into question."

Another project he'd been eager to bring online but that might now be on hold is the implementation of a document management platform, which would increase functionality and allow attorneys to search across the city's entire legal database. The training budget might also see cuts, Pratt said, and the agency's travel budget for CLE programs, which Pratt noted had been greatly expanded recently, could also see reductions.

"You always have grand plans for making the office better, and then this happens," he said, adding he is going to continue to push for ways to keep these projects in the works despite the budget cuts. "It's hard. Everybody's making very tough decisions."

The Defender Association of Philadelphia had been set to get nearly $48.5 million under the mayor's initial proposal, but the revised budget proposes a $2 million cut. That means a 4% reduction. Although the agency technically is a nonprofit and receives some funding from other sources, the city provides for the vast majority of the Defender's budget.

A spokesman for the office declined to comment for the story, however, during a recent Criminal Justice Advisory Board meeting, Chief Defender Keir Bradford-Grey said the proposed cuts could mean no new hires for the year, which would mean the agency operates with roughly 25 fewer attorneys.

The mayor's budget, however, is the first step in the process for allocating funds to city agencies, and it is City Council that will have the ultimate say. According to the council's web page, no schedule has yet been set for budget testimony by the agency heads.