DA's Office may be facing steep cuts as budget shortfall looms

NEW ORLEANS – As the city of New Orleans grapples with a projected shortfall of $68 million, some city departments are now grappling with what cuts may need to be made – and that includes the District Attorney's Office.

“Essentially, we've been informed our budget will be cut somewhere in the neighborhood of $600,000 dollars or so," said Orleans Parish DA Leon Cannizzaro.

The $600,000 would come from a 10 percent across-the-board cut, proposed by Mayor Ray Nagin during his budget presentation before the City Council on Friday. He said the cut is needed to avoid layoffs and keep the city running.

"We want to try to minimize any reduction in critical city services because our population continues to grow substantially," Mayor Nagin said.

For the District Attorney’s Office, the $600,000 would likely come from two programs: a diversion program for non-violent offenders and the Victim-Witness Assistance Program.

"Although these are what we would call 'ancillary programs,' they are certainly programs that have been very successful and very helpful to us in our ability to fight violent crime," Cannizzaro said.

Take the diversion program, for instance: it places non-violent offenders into a job training and drug-testing program. It then dismisses pending charges against those individuals, after a probationary period. The diversion program grew from 300 people last year to more than 700 this year.

The same goes for the Victim-Witness Assistance Program, which grew from 300 people last year to more than 1,900 people this year. Cannizzaro said cutting those programs would have a major effect on his office and their cases.

"If we don't have our witnesses, and we don't have our witnesses feeling comfortable that they can walk into the courtroom, testify freely without any reprisals or retribution, than we lose our cases," he said.

"I think there is finally a very energetic and unified recognition that engaging witnesses and victims is a critical part of the criminal justice system," said Baty Landis of the anti-crime group "Silence Is Violence."

Landis said engaging victims, witnesses and non-violent offenders sends a needed message – that of a functioning criminal justice system and a functioning city, as a whole.

"There is nothing that's more impactful on our city's health and our quality of life, than our safety and security," she said. "We can't be economically viable, we can't improve education, we can't strengthen families-- we can't do any of these things, if we don't have a fundamental sense of security and safety."

Cannizzaro said when he makes his budget presentation to the City Council, he will ask them to fund both the diversion program and the Victim-Witness Assistance Program. Some council members have already indicated a 10 percent across the board cut may not be an option for every city department. By law, the council must approve a balanced budget by Dec. 1.