District attorney cuts 15 temporary jobs

While the Salt Lake County Council on Tuesday was signing off on a plan to reduce government operation costs by more than $17 million, District Attorney Lohra Miller was delivering the difficult news of layoffs to 15 temporary employees she can no longer afford under new budget constraints.

While the lost positions — 13 legal clerks and 2 prosecuting attorneys — will create new demands on her legal staff, Miller said the move was necessary because of the need to find about $2 million in reductions by the end of the year.

"We looked at all of our programs … at every position, and like every other county department, are trying to make the best of a bad situation," Miller said.

That bad situation is a projected $50 million in county revenue shortfalls by 2010 — a situation that Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon and his staff are hoping to address with preemptive actions, including the $17.4 million in cuts approved on Tuesday.

Miller's office is making a host of changes to cover $788,000 in asked-for budget reductions and $1.2 million in lost CONTRA (unallocated) funds. The changes include Miller enacting a wage freeze for herself and top staffers.

"My wages, as well as my administrative staff's wages, will be held at 2008 levels," Miller said. "Everybody is sharing in doing what they can … taking on new responsibilities … to get through this."

The work performed by the lost clerks, who were a support network for county prosecutors, will be redistributed among the attorneys and other staff members, Miller said. She is also looking into new ways to condense some of the time-consuming tasks, like brief-writing.

Doug Willmore, Corroon's chief administrative officer, held up Miller's office on Tuesday as a county agency that was utilizing innovation — like moving to a paperless office system — to squeeze savings out of every facet of operation.

Corroon said Tuesday that elected officials and division leaders were asked to attain budget targets, but left free to assess, within their areas of responsibility, how to best achieve those goals. Over 90 positions were eliminated countywide, but of those, all were vacant except six. The vacancies came by way of a hiring freeze instigated last November — another move by Corroon's office meant to mitigate ongoing revenue losses.

E-MAIL: araymond@desnews.com