State Sen. Joseph Griffo, R-Rome, is co-sponsoring two bills that would address issues concerning the criminal justice system, while relieving counties of burdensome unfunded mandates.

In one bill, Senator Griffo is calling upon the state to provide $1.6 million in financial assistance to help all counties pay for a recent state-mandated increase in salary for local district attorneys. The other bill, Griffo said, would require the State to provide fully-funded legal representation for indigent criminal defendants by 2018 by reimbursing all counties for these expenses.

Griffo represents the 47th Senate District. It includes a swath running through the middle of St. Lawrence County, from Massena to Fine, including Potsdam.

Both bills, if approved, would help relieve counties of the financial strain they are currently experiencing as a result of these escalating funding burdens, Griffo said.

The independent New York State Commission on Legislative, Judicial, and Executive Compensation approved on April 1 an increase in salaries for all state judges.

But, as these judges would see an increase in pay, current State Judicial Law also requires District Attorney salaries to be equal to, or higher than, County Court or Supreme Court judges.

Instead of leaving counties to fend for themselves in paying for this mandated increase in District Attorney salaries, this bill would direct the State to provide approximately $1.6 million in financial assistance to counties to cover the costs.

“This is yet another example of New York State’s troubling pattern of imposing mandates without providing the proper funding to ensure that municipalities can actually afford these new measures,” Griffo said. “Our counties are already struggling to cover a wide variety of budgetary priorities within the strict confines of the property tax cap, so this bill will accomplish what the State should have done by ensuring that increasing salaries for District Attorneys will not negatively impact county budgets.”

The state recently settled a lawsuit with five counties – Suffolk, Washington, Ontario, Onondaga and Schuyler – to put the New York State Office of Indigent Legal Services in charge of public defense operations in those counties. But in the other remaining counties that still have to fund their indigent legal services according to a federal mandate, the ability or inability of a particular county to be able to properly support the program has resulted in an inconsistent level of service and staffing of public defenders from region to region across the state. This bill would require the state to fully reimburse all counties for their expenses involving indigent legal defense services, starting in 2018.

“Everyone has a constitutional right to an attorney,” Griffo said. “But as our counties try to balance their budgets, the fairness of our criminal justice system for the poorest of criminal defendants should not depend upon how much local taxpayers are able pay toward their county’s indigent legal services. Requiring the State to fully reimburse financially-stressed counties for indigent legal services would help ensure that our public defenders can provide the proper attention these important cases deserve in the interest of justice.”