County jury-rigs lower rents for poorly paid state attorneys

Low pay leading to vacancies in the state attorney’s and public defender’s offices have prompted Miami-Dade County to cut a highly unusual deal with a developer to give justice attorneys preference for workforce housing in a private Brickell area high-rise.

How discouraging that state salary levels for skilled, highly educated attorneys leave them working at below area median income in public service justice jobs. Those salaries spring from the legislature, where most members are sorely out of touch with Miami’s costs of living – particularly for housing.

The basics: 

■Area median income in Miami-Dade is $79,400, as determined by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development for public housing pricing. 

■Beginning attorneys for the state attorney’s office and the public defender’s office are paid $68,000, as set by state funding. 

■Beginning lawyers carry an average of $160,000 in student debt. 

■The average one-bedroom apartment in the area rents for about $3,000 a month, which is 53% of the salary of these beginning attorneys.

That’s the backdrop to a discussion in a county Zoning Board meeting last week that led to a deal with the developer of a 517-unit high-rise just west of Brickell Avenue to set aside 26 of those units as workforce housing, with the developer agreeing to give attorneys in the state attorney’s and public defender’s office priority in renting them.

“There’s districts [like this one] where the market rate is very high, and that’s why these things are going to go like pancakes,” said Commissioner Raquel Regalado in explaining why the attorneys would snap up all 26 units.

“I have done this before and I can tell you that those units will be rented in four hours,” said Commissioner Eileen Higgins.

The developer of 39-story 128 SW Seventh St. had sought to price the 26 workforce units at a market for persons making up to 140% of area median income (AMI). For agreeing to a zoning exception, commissioners persuaded attorney Javier Aviñó, representing the developer, to reserve the units for first refusal to those justice attorneys at 120% maximum of AMI.

Some commissioners making the deal had in fact worked in those jobs early in their careers and knew the squeeze on young public-service attorneys.

“Our public defenders and our prosecutors, many of these people are paid less than teachers,” said Keon Hardemon, who noted that teachers’ salaries are being raised to make them more commensurate with the cost of living. “That doesn’t happen within the public defender’s and prosecutor’s office…. When I was there doing my time we never saw one dollar of an increase. It was just what it was – we were poorly paid.”

“I was a prosecutor too. I never saw a raise either,” said commission Chairman Oliver Gilbert III.

That’s not a testimonial for the way the state deals with its people – and those people are serving Miami-Dade County and our justice system.

“I’m not Pollyannish that with this project we’re going to be solving the entry-level issue,” said Commissioner Higgins, who drove the deal with the developer. “But we have such incredible attrition of these attorneys who’ve been there five years, six years, seven years, eight years and are moving into that 100%, 120% [of AMI]. We may be able, at least with this private-sector project, to plug the attrition drain on the experienced attorneys.” County projects, she said, could be used to help the beginning attorneys at 80% to 100% of area median income.

The drain she cited is wide open now. In March, State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said she had lost 156 prosecutors in the prior 24 months and projected a 35% staff vacancy by summer. Public Defender Carlos Martinez said then that his office had lost 29 lawyers a year for the past two years and expected a 24% to 25% vacancy rate.

Both of them have been knocking on the door in Tallahassee to get money to pay their attorneys more – not as much as in private practice, which they could never match, but enough to close a 25% deficit compared to attorneys in the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Bear in mind that these attorneys try to make sure that our streets are not filled with criminals while guaranteeing all defendants a fair trial. And bear in mind that for every attorney who quits, the offices lose experience and have to start over with newcomers – if they can find people who are willing to take the jobs at the bottom of the attorney pay scale in the first place.

Paid like that, “it makes you want to consider going into the private sector, because you’re tired of being poor,” said Commissioner Raquel Regalado. “And those are the conversations that you have with attorneys in those jobs.” 

Local elected officials see the problem and are trying to make a small dent with a private sector deal to pick up 26 housing units for young defenders and prosecutors. It’s a highly unusual deal – reserving units for a specific group. The county can’t by law exercise that sort of preference itself, but a cooperating developer needing a zoning exception is willing to. Bravo.

But that’s not a solution to the core problem. That solution sits in Tallahassee, where legislators divvy up the state budget. They should be aware of this issue. They’ve been told for years. But it’s not high priority as they spend taxpayers’ money. It should be.

The county shouldn’t have to jury-rig deals in zoning cases in order to staff the state’s justice system. Embarrassing.