Criminal Justice
Ohio Prosecutor Takes Pay Cut and Moonlights to Keep Office Staff
Posted Jan 7, 2009, 12:39 pm CST
By Martha Neil
Concerned about a limited government budget that could require staff layoffs, an Ohio prosecutor has taken a pay cut—and a part-time job practicing law—to help his office make ends meet.
Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters will now make $80,000 instead of $123,000 annually for his government work, as he handles civil matters on a part-time basis at Waite Schneider Bayless & Chesley, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer and the Associated Press.
“I don’t have the luxury to say, ‘We aren’t going to prosecute this murder case,’ “ Deters tells county commissioners in a letter last month, the Enquirer reports. But by taking the part-time job in private practice (which prosecutors and other government attorneys in Ohio are permitted to do, the articles note), he says he can save at least a secretarial position.
In the letter, he also urged the commissioners to cut costs by sending less county legal work to private law firms.
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