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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Lisa Schreibersdorf, Executive Director of Brooklyn Defender Services, on Public Defender Budgets
4:02:41
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3 min
Lisa Schreibersdorf, representing public defenders in New York City, discusses the need for increased funding to match salaries with other comparable cities and retain staff. She emphasizes that despite a recent $20 million allocation, an additional $100 million is required to address budget shortfalls and improve staff retention.
- The current starting salary of about $85,000 needs to be increased to $100,000 to compete with other cities and address high living costs in New York.
- There are concerns about losing experienced staff, especially around the third year of employment.
- Schreibersdorf stresses the importance of increasing the baseline funding before the upcoming RFP year to ensure proper funding for future projects.
Lisa Schreibersdorf
4:02:41
Should we start?
4:02:43
Hi, I'm Lisa Schweibisdorf, I'm the executive director of Brooklyn Defender Services.
4:02:50
We are representing all the public defenders in New York City today.
4:02:54
Some of whom were here and some of who could not make it.
4:02:58
We did want to take this opportunity to talk a little more about our overall budgets for the city, for our work.
4:03:06
I know you asked some questions during the mach j portion.
4:03:09
So you're aware that after our testimony at the preliminaries, we have done a lot of advocacy to get more money from the mayor's office.
4:03:19
And we're really glad to hear that they did allocate 20 more million dollars.
4:03:23
So I just wanted to clarify.
4:03:25
There are some concerns with the way that that money needs to be spent.
4:03:28
But I feel like we probably can work that out.
4:03:32
But I just wanted to make sure that this is, excuse me, this, I just walked in.
Gale A. Brewer
4:03:36
Do you mind giving me a little water?
Lisa Schreibersdorf
4:03:39
I just wanted to make sure that the city council is aware that our ask that we really feel we need is probably another hundred million dollars or close to that.
4:03:50
And the reason is that we've been saying for many many years that we need to match salaries of our staff to other cities that are equivalent to New York such as LA and even some counties upstate where people are being paid quite a bit more money that they can live in their you know home locations and do their work in the places where they're serving people.
4:04:14
And we're unable to do that at this point.
4:04:17
And in order to meet those salaries, what is currently about an $85,000 starting salary at all of our offices, you know they're all a little different but roughly, really needs to be bumped up to about a hundred thousand dollars.
4:04:29
Because students are coming out of law school.
4:04:31
They have large student debts.
4:04:34
The housing market in New York is prohibitive.
4:04:36
And we are losing people.
4:04:38
We are losing a lot of people.
4:04:39
It is hard harder and harder to retain people, especially out around the third year.
4:04:45
So, we've done some computation.
4:04:47
Again, we can't be totally sure what it would cost, but we really believe that somewhere between I I would say about a hundred million dollars more than the 20 that they gave us.
4:04:57
So we'll make very very good use of this.
4:05:00
But we really are asking finance and you know the city council in general to really try to negotiate for a little more money into our budget you know for the coming year.
4:05:10
But one of the issues where I think it's an important piece, we're in an extension year where we've had a contract for six years.
4:05:17
And all right it's good to have this little bit of extra money but and I don't want to pooh $20,000,000 sounds like a lot but it's you know it's not a huge amount for us.
4:05:25
But we're worried that when we go into the RFP year that if it's really really underfunded it's very hard to do proposals and to expect the city to properly fund that project you know after the RFP comes in.
4:05:39
So it is very important in this coming year for our baseline to go up a bit and maybe even in the following year.
4:05:45
So we appreciate your attention and time and consideration.
4:05:49
Thank you.