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Council urges new DA to aim high with budget

Section: Business

Bruce Eggler

Keva Landrum-Johnson's first appearance before the New Orleans City Council could hardly have been more gratifying.

As the city's recently installed district attorney presented her office's 2008 budget request to the council Tuesday, its members practically begged her to ask for more money.

"Give us your wish list," said Councilwoman Jacquelyn Brechtel Clarkson, who had been sworn in as one of the council's two at-large members about an hour earlier.

"Give us the maximum. Give us the ultimate," Clarkson said. "As goes the DA's office, so goes the city of New Orleans."

Other members were only slightly less extravagant, pressing Landrum-Johnson to ask for more money for paralegals, clerical workers and other purposes than is provided in the $3.6 million Mayor Ray Nagin's proposed 2008 budget would give to the office.

That figure is $450,000 higher than the office's 2007 appropriation, with the extra money dedicated to support staff, although currently budgeted federal grants are $700,000 less than this year, creating an overall $250,000 shortfall that could be wiped out if more grants are received.

Council President Arnie Fielkow asked Landrum-Johnson to present a supplemental request within 24 hours listing what money she would like in addition to the $3.6 million. He suggested she ask for money for more paralegals and support staff.

"This is one of the 'A' departments that have to get funded," he said.

The council is scheduled to vote on the budget Friday.

So expansive were the council members' offers that Assistant Chief Administrative Officer Cary Grant broke in to note that the DA's office is one of the few city departments scheduled to get more money in 2008 than it did before Hurricane Katrina and that the city provides only about a third of the office's total budget. The state pays most of the salaries of the office's attorneys.

The scene was a far cry from the tense atmosphere that often characterized former District Attorney Eddie Jordan's appearances before the council. Although the council agreed in the spring to give Jordan more money to raise salaries for some of his prosecutors, members repeatedly called for changes in the way he was running his office.

In the face of growing public criticism, Jordan resigned his post a month ago, saying he hoped his action would open the way for settlement of a $3.3 million discrimination judgment against his office resulting from his firing of dozens of employees, most of whom were white, after taking over from longtime DA Harry Connick in 2003.

The fired workers recently won permission to seize some of the office's assets, which could have prevented workers from getting paid.

Landrum-Johnson replaced Jordan on an interim basis Oct. 31, and council members were profuse in their praise of her. "You've given a lot of people hope for the future," Councilwoman Stacy Head said.

Although Landrum-Johnson said she is counting on getting additional grants to cover the office's needs for more clerical staff and upgraded technology, Councilwoman Shelley Midura urged her to ask for city money anyway. "We don't want you to have to wait," Midura said, suggesting that the city should take on the responsibility of covering the $250,000 shortfall.

Landrum-Johnson said she has enough attorneys to handle the office's caseload and said their starting salary of $50,000 is adequate. Despite the resignations of several lawyers in recent months, she said, the Violent Offenders Unit formed under Jordan to prosecute some of the most serious crimes is "very stable," with 10 lawyers and seven investigators giving it "a huge amount of success."

John Casbon, founder of the New Orleans Police and Justice Foundation, said a local business school and executives from major companies are working on a business plan for the district attorney's office.

"There is a lot of effort going on to make sure this office is world-class," Casbon said, contrasting the present situation with that under Jordan, when he said "no one could get their hands around" the office's plans.

City and state officials said last week that they had worked out a deal to pay off the bulk of the judgment against the district attorney's office. The plan called for a $1 million advance to the office from the city, a $1.6 million contribution by the state and $300,000 from the office's own coffers. Although less than the $3.4 million still owed to the plaintiffs, the proposed settlement had the endorsement of all parties, Nagin said.

Landrum-Johnson said Tuesday that plans for repaying the city's $1 million advance are "not completely worked out."

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