Corroon, GOP council members strike budget deal for DA's office

Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon put his veto pen back in the desk drawer Thursday.

The Democratic mayor reached a compromise with the Republicans on the council to cut $175,000 from the Republican District Attorney's budget. Corroon had threatened to veto for the first time in his three years in office if the Republican-dominated council didn't cut at least three or four positions from District Attorney Lohra Miller's budget.

"It's very helpful to be on the same page with the council," Corroon said. "We all felt that public safety, victims' rights and fiscal restraint are not mutually exclusive goals."

Both sides were at odds since Corroon said the council went too far by adding $1.37 million to the district attorney's budget, which would have funded 16 new full-time employees, including four new prosecutors. Miller says her office is overworked and is in desperate need of more staff.

Corroon said the district attorney's budget increase, coupled with stormy financial forecasts for the upcoming year and other future funding requests, would have put the county at financial odds in 2009 and require a tax increase. Without a cut to Miller's budget, Corroon said he was prepared to use a line-item veto.

Republicans on the council balked, saying Corroon doesn't care about public safety. (However, the GOP-dominated council voted 5-4 against a proposal to budget $600,000 to prepare Oxbow Jail to be opened again in the near future.) Corroon said he was just looking after the taxpayers.

Council Chairman Mark Crockett said Corroon chose the wrong battle to fight: If county leaders could agree on an $811 million budget, why all the fuss over $300,000?

"It's a tempest in a teapot," Crockett said. "I couldn't think of a more trivial amount of money to test a veto, so I guess it would have been a nice test case."

Corroon said every penny is important.

The mayor and the Democrats on the council tried to avoid the veto battle.

Hours before the council was set to vote on the final 2008 budget, Corroon offered a last-minute compromise — one that the district attorney agreed to — that would have cut the total increase to about $1 million. The compromise slashed a domestic violence warrant officer, a community prosecution coordinator, a paralegal and a secretary.