With Teachers Getting Laid Off, Legislature Gives D.A.'s a Raise
You’ve got to give it to the Mississippi Legislature for sheer unpredictability. With teachers across the state facing layoffs due to budget shortfalls, you would not think that any state employees are getting raises from the legislature. You would be wrong.
Check out Senate Bill 2610, which authorizes raises of as much as $8,300 per year to District Attorneys and lesser amounts to legal assistants and criminal investigators. The bill authorizes the D.A.’s to pay themselves the raises from office-generated funds, county funds, municipality funds, federal funds, grants or private foundations. So pretty much wherever they can find some money, they can use it to pay themselves.
This bill promises to be rather unpopular with other segments of the population, such as teachers and state court judges. Mississippi’s woefully underpaid state court judges have been unsuccessfully trying to get a pay raise out of the legislature for years.
Senators Nunnelee, Dearing, Jackson and Watson sponsored the bill. It’s my understanding that the bill is on Governor Barbour’s desk for signing.
Whats the problem? The money doesn't come from the state but other sources.
Yea, that was probably how they sold it the legislature. That is also one of the reasons that judges are so mad about it. Judges are in the same system as D.A.'s. But how can judges get a raise from office generated funds or private foundations? And do we want a system where D.A.'s can be paid from private foundations?
What's to keep anyone who may ever need a favor from the D.A. from setting up a private foundation and paying money to the D.A. through it every year? You have talked about appearance created by the Irby family's contribution to McMillan's campaigns. How would it look if a wealthy family under investigation was paying over $10,000 a year in salary to the D.A. and other office employees? It can happen under this system.