Your guide to NYC's public proceedings.
AGENCY TESTIMONY
New budget requests for personnel and program funding
5:21:23
ยท
119 sec
Alvin Bragg concludes his testimony by outlining new budget requests for the Manhattan DA's office, focusing on additional personnel and program funding.
- Request for mid-level assistant district attorneys to address a gap caused by attrition during and after COVID
- Ask for additional professional staff to handle the increased volume of discoverable material due to discovery law changes
- Request for more funding to continue and expand the work of the Pathways Public Safety Division
- Bragg emphasizes that these requests are detailed in their written submission to the council
- The DA's office is advocating for changes to discovery statutes in Albany, but notes that additional staff will be needed regardless of potential legal changes
Alvin Bragg
5:21:23
Like my colleagues, I do have NewASC, and they're based really in in in personnel, some additional personnel that would be extraordinarily helpful in in three ways.
5:21:34
So though my office is seeing historically low rates of attrition for our office, we are still feeling the effects of the significant attrition that occurred prior to and during the early days of of COVID.
5:21:49
As a result, sort of a very specific issue has emerged in our office.
5:21:55
We're now lacking sufficient mid level assistant district attorneys.
5:22:00
These are the attorneys that are handling quite serious cases.
5:22:05
Know, it takes time to develop expertise and depth in the work that we do.
5:22:09
And, obviously, there are financial strains and people depart.
5:22:12
But particularly during COVID, we had those sort of mid levels.
5:22:16
And so that area is one area where we are coming to ask that that gap be addressed.
5:22:21
More detail is in our written submission.
5:22:24
The second and DAs McMahon and Clark mentioned the discovery challenges.
5:22:29
We are in Albany, you know, advocating for changes to the statute.
5:22:35
The sheer volume of discoverable material that we must produce also produces kind of personnel challenges.
5:22:41
And we have and ask in our written materials to the council to help us with positions to expand the head count of professional staff to focus on our ability to fulfill our discovery obligations as early and as quickly in the life of a case as possible.
5:22:56
We make that request, and that need will persist even if there's a change in Albany in the law.
5:23:03
We just need more personnel to deal with the volume of discoverable material.
5:23:08
And finally, we're asking for additional funding.
5:23:11
I highlighted the Pathways of Public Safety Division work.
5:23:14
We're asking for additional funding, is set forth in the written materials to continue that good work.
5:23:20
Thank you so much for your time.
5:23:21
I appreciate it.