Hlavac Part of Attorney General Holder’s Justice Reform Process

Kingman, AZ -- Mohave County Deputy County Manager for Criminal Justice Services Dana Hlavac visited with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder in Washington, D.C., last week concerning a balanced approach for federal funding of the justice system.

“I was invited to a relatively intimate meeting of about 30 people with Attorney General Holder and representatives of his administration,” Hlavac said. “The meeting took place Wednesday, June 24, at a D.C. hotel.”

Hlavac said the participants came from a variety of states.

“My prior relationship with the National Legal Aid and Defender Association and American Counsel of Chief Defenders led to my invitation to the one-day meeting,” he said. “They also invited a Seattle, Wash., university professor, some scholastic academia people, some consultants, a lot of heads of defender offices of indigent defense and representatives from the National Criminal Justice Association.”

Holder spent the first 20 minutes speaking about his priorities, Hlavac said. “General Holder believes that during the later years of President Bill Clinton’s administration and throughout President George W. Bush’s administration there has been a strong focus on funding prosecution and law enforcement while ignoring indigent defense issues. This has led to systemic lawsuits concerning funding and caseload issues in several states.

“What I spoke about was the fact that the injection of federal funds into local governments can actually have a negative impact if it is done disproportionately,” Hlavac said. “When the feds infuse money into one side of a system but not the other side, they are basically telling local governments to increase spending to the unfunded side; essentially, creating an unfunded mandate. Attorney General Holder is aware of the problems and is attempting to take steps to be more cognizant of those impacts.”

Hlavac illustrated the potential problems of an unbalanced funding system.

“The feds could come in and put a thousand additional law enforcement officers to fight crime on our streets in Mohave County if they want to,” he said. “But that would overwhelm our courts, our prosecutors and our public defenders, which means our system would implode. So it is incumbent on the federal government to consider the overall impact on our system and ensure there is adequate funding to support the whole system on any new project that is implemented. Attorney General Holder accepts that concept and wants his administration to become aware of that issue and have a more systemic approach.

“One proposal that was discussed is to require a system impact statement for grant applications,” Hlavac said. “So if you are going to add more defenders, for instance, what will be the impacts on prosecutors, courts and law enforcement? If you are going to add more police, how will that impact prosecutors, courts and defenders? That (impact statements) will lead to funding to cover all impacts with ‘system grants’ rather than ‘segment grants.’”

Hlavac said Holder is initiating a series of meetings to take place over the next few years to specifically deal with funding issues such as the “flows and impacts on local jurisdictions and the inequities they may cause. Acting Assistant Attorney General Laurie Robinson” and representatives from all divisions of the Department of Justice that “collectively oversee financial distributions were in attendance. Our next meeting will be held in March,” Hlavac said.

The cost of funding the Criminal Justice System in Mohave County is large and growing at a more than 10 percent annual rate. According to Deputy County Manager of Financial Services John Timko, Mohave County’s Criminal Justice System cost for the 2009-2010 Fiscal Year will be $41,620,000. “Our total property tax revenues for that year are estimated to be $32 million. Justice will cost us 130 percent of all property taxes. With all of our revenue sources coming in for that year, our General Fund expenditures will be $75,115,000. That Justice System is a 55 percent bill right out of our total General Fund.”

“The majority of states have a largely state-funded Justice System,” Hlavac said. “Arizona is in the minority. We are one of a handful of states with a completely county funded Public Defender’s Office. In Mohave County, roughly 45 percent of our prosecutor’s budget comes from federal and state dollars. The sheriff gets around 21 percent for the feds and state. Indigent Defense gets less than one tenth of one percent from the state.”

Federal money is available for the system, he said. “Including the federal stimulus money this year, $2.4 billion are available for state and local law enforcement assistance. The COPS (Community Oriented Policing) program has another billion available. Juvenile justice programs have $374 million there; violence against women programs have $600 million. There is a lot of federal money available, but most of it is restricted to law enforcement and prosecution which causes counties like Mohave to struggle to balance the system. It’s an unfunded mandate that is put right on the backs of local taxpayers.”

Hlavac said there are “roughly a dozen systemic lawsuits” against states due to inequities in Criminal Justice System funding. “Nevada is going through a lawsuit regarding lack of state funding for indigent defense.”

Mohave County has been in the forefront of trying to coordinate a balanced systemic approach to justice, Hlavac said. “We are fairly unique with our position of deputy county manager of Criminal Justice Services. While other counties have similar positions, we have been a little more aggressive about taking a systemic approach while maintaining autonomy for all elected officials and respecting the separation of powers of the judiciary, executive and legislative branches of government. When we look at how to best use taxpayer dollars in the most efficient manner, it requires that we work collectively and cooperatively. There are times for the separation of powers to keep each branch in check and there are times when we must work together to make sure to optimize the return on what we do with tax dollars. I think Mohave County is a leader in the state, if not the nation, in that balanced, common sense approach.”

Hlavac looks forward to the March meeting and continuing to work with Holder on his “commitment to equal justice.”