Gains defends pay raises

February 11, 2011 at 12:10a.m.

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Paul Gains

YOUNGSTOWN

In an often-contentious staff meeting, Mahoning County Prosecutor Paul J. Gains and county commissioners sparred over pay increases granted to all 32 assistant prosecutors.

“Instead of replacing people, I want to keep the people I have,” Gains told the county commissioners Thursday.

But all three commissioners were critical, with John A. McNally IV, panel chairman, noting “the sheer size of some of the raises.”

The pay increases ranged from less than 3 percent to 22 percent and totaled $197,000.

Gains spent $1,826,372 on salaries in 2010, with that number rising to $2,024,062 this year. The 22 percent raise went to Rebecca Doherty because of her promotion to chief of the criminal division.

“These people are worth every dime and more” and shouldn’t be paid less than court-appointed defense lawyers, Gains said. “Inexperienced prosecutors will lose issues and cases.”

“If I lost more lawyers, and we’re not able to replace them, we could end up with a backlog,” of criminal cases, which would result in county jail crowding and another potential lawsuit over crowding, Gains said.

“We’ve already got half the jail closed. I can’t afford to have these cases sitting dormant because I’ve got people that are busier looking for other jobs than they are doing their own jobs and the morale is low,” Gains said.

Commissioner Anthony T. Traficanti told Gains: “The raises you gave are a little steep. ... I just question the wisdom and the timing due to the economic downturn that we’re still experiencing.Traficanti also noted that concessions are still being taken in many other county government departments.

“These lawyers have worked harder than ever before,” Gains said. If they leave, Gains said he’d have to hire new, inexperienced lawyers.

Gains pointed to a steady increase in felony criminal convictions from 675 in 2006, 821 in 2007, 959 in 2008, 1,237 in 2009 and 1,363 last year as his prosecutors became more experienced.

“In the times that we are in and the economy of this Valley, this is a lot of money, and you’ve got people laid off here and taking [unpaid] furlough days” in county government, Commissioner Carol Rimedio-Righetti said of the raises. “No one’s going to quit on this list.”

Gains replied, “Please do not tell me my people will not leave. They have left.” Gains said he has lost 38 of his lawyers in his 14 years in office to a multitude of other places of employment, including the city prosecutor’s office, other county prosecutors’ offices, county magistrate’s positions, the federal government and private law practice, which pay higher salaries.

“That happens all the time in government work,” McNally said of the turnover to which Gains referred.

“We pay attorneys in Mahoning County a good wage. They get health benefits,” said McNally, a lawyer and a former Youngstown law director.

Annual pay for full-time prosecutors in Gains’ office ranges from $56,000 for a criminal prosecutor hired Dec. 1, 2008, to $115,000 for Gains.

Before the raises were granted, “they were all looking” for other jobs, Doherty said of her colleagues.

She noted that many lawyers emerge from law school with $100,000 in student loan debt.

“Don’t you want the most experienced, committed prosecutor representing you if you’re a victim?” Doherty asked the commissioners.