Office needs raises badly, Shurtleff says

State Attorney General Mark Shurtleff made his pitch to the Legislature on Thursday for $2.1 million to boost the salaries of the lawyers in his office to keep them from leaving for better-paying jobs.

"Here's an attorney coming forward and asking from money. We know how people feel about attorneys," Shurtleff told members of the Legislature's joint appropriations subcommittee over executive branch budgets.

But his office, which starts attorneys at $40,000, has been losing legal staff at a rate of about one attorney a month for the past three years. Most have gone to jobs with other state agencies or even local governments that can pay better.

Shurtleff said he tried to hire an attorney working for the city of Tooele, but the attorney — who handled only misdemeanor cases — would have had to take a $10,000 pay cut.

"First and foremost for us, and our No. 1 priority as it has been for four years, is pay," the attorney general said. He also asked the subcommittee also to consider recommending adding four new attorney positions. With some 213 attorneys under him, Shurtleff already heads what is in effect the largest law firm in the state.

The subcommittee did not vote Thursday on the attorney general's request. Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. has included $1.5 million for attorney pay increases in his budget, but the Legislature's own analyst put no money in for the salary boost after weighing Shurtleff's request against other state needs.

Still, subcommittee members seemed sympathetic.

"I think they've got some serious issues that need to be addressed," said Rep. Curt Oda, R-Clearfield. "I think it's an investment."

The hike would amount to an average increase of about 10 percent, David Stallard, the administrator of the attorney general's office said. Currently, the average annual salary for an attorney in the office is about $70,000, Stallard said.

It's not just the attorneys in the office who might see more money. The Executive and Judicial Compensation Commission has said the attorney general's salary should go up 11.9 percent, from the $85,400 the position now pays.

Compared to other Western states, "our attorney general isn't paid enough to stay in the game," the subcommittee's co-chairman, Sen. David Thomas, R-South Weber, said. Thomas, an attorney with Summit County, also said he understood the problem Shurtleff was having in keeping attorneys.

"I stole one of his water attorneys," Thomas said. "They did train her well."

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