BATON ROUGE - Dozens of jobs, as well as many court programs, are on the chopping block should the proposed budget be approved. Some groups, like the District Attorney's office, say they would be willing to pursue legal action should the City-Parish not provide adequate funding.

The 19th Judicial District Court, Family Court, City Court, Juvenile Court, Office of the Public Defender, and the District Attorney's Office pleaded their cases to the Metro Council on Wednesday night.

In the Mayor-President's proposed budget, each court system and the DA's Office would see an 11-percent decrease in the budget. The Public Defender's Office would be allotted roughly $855,000 out of ARPA funds.
Representatives from City Court told the council that the proposed cut would kill 21 positions. The DA's Office said it would have to cut 15-25 people from an already understaffed department.

Since introducing the budget, the Mayor-President's Office said there would be no budget reductions to public safety. DA Hillar Moore said maintaining the justice system is a part of public safety.

"All the constitutional offices and the public defender need to be funded first, before any other entity is funded," he said. "[The Metro Council] is in a difficult position; they know where we are now, we're in a corner where we may have to strike back and sue."

Chief Public Defender Kyla Romanach agreed that there could potentially be a lawsuit.

"I'm not necessarily looking for litigation, but I think litigation may come my way. When I start telling judges that you're going to have to appoint lawyers from the community and not pay them, then I think there's going to be some litigation on that," Romanach said. "Some court is going to have to decide what do we do when we don't provide enough funding to provide counsel to everyone who needs it?"

Romanach added that the proposed cuts would mean she would need to lay off the office's one social worker as well as six investigators, a large part of her investigation team.

"If we are not cutting the police, we are continuing to make the same number of arrests. But the District Attorney has to cut staff, and we have to cut staff, there is going to be a glut," she said. "Our pretrial detainees... many of them 500-600 a day are being held in North Louisiana. That just increases costs because we're bringing people into the system through arrest, we don't have the money to prosecute or defend them as quickly, and so if they can't bond, they are going to be held at taxpayers' expense potentially for years."

The council is expected to vote on the budget in December.