Camden County prosecutor unsure of layoffs' scale

Less than a week before layoffs that could reduce his staff by nearly a third, Camden County Prosecutor Warren Faulk still doesn't know how deep those cuts will be, he said Tuesday.

Faulk said he received word from the county freeholders Thursday that the proposed 2011 budget for the Prosecutor's Office would be $2.7 million less than he requested, not $3.2 million less as first thought. But that revision would not "significantly change the layoffs," he said.

Since then, Faulk said, Freeholder Director Louis Cappelli Jr. told an investigator at the Prosecutor's Office that the budget could change again.

"All I was informed was that it may not be final," Faulk said in an interview Tuesday. "In my view, public safety is the first responsibility of government. We are not just another department of the county. This is not the mosquito control commission."

Faulk has battled with the freeholders for months over their plan to close what they have described as a $43 million county budget deficit. Faulk announced this month that he would delay laying off 66 workers until Tuesday to see if the county would reduce cuts to his office's proposed $21.7 million budget.

Cappelli and Freeholder Deputy Director Ed McDonnell, who are closely involved in negotiations, did not return phone calls for comment.

A county spokeswoman said the funding number given to Faulk last week was final, but she could not say when the county planned to introduce the budget, which it is required to do by June 30.

"We're not far away," she said. "I don't know where this is coming from."

Like other local governments across New Jersey, Camden County faces a dwindling property-tax base and reduced state funding while costs such as health care and pensions continue to rise.

The prosecutor largely remained diplomatic Tuesday, saying, "I trust the process will work itself out."

But he pointed out that the county is constitutionally bound to fund the Prosecutor's Office and said that in the late 1960s, Camden County Prosecutor A. Donald Bigley challenged the county's funding of the department and won.

Faulk would not comment on whether he has considered taking the county to court.

"It's a drastic measure, and it shouldn't be necessary to go to court to get a judge to decide this," Faulk said.

Layoffs in the Prosecutor's Office would be an additional blow to Camden, ranked as one of the most dangerous cities in the nation. In January, the city laid off nearly half of its police. Though some have been rehired, the force now has about 250 officers, down from 370 before the layoffs.

The Prosecutor's Office acts as a de facto investigative unit for the city, an arrangement that would be dealt a severe blow were the county cuts to proceed, Faulk said.

Shaneka Boucher, a member of the city's District Council Collaborative Board, an advisory group that works with Camden authorities on quality-of-life issues, said the prospect of losing more law enforcement had some residents uneasy.

"In the warmer months you usually have an uptick in crime. This is bad timing," she said. "It's kind of scary to think what will happen."

Faulk had proposed a 2011 budget that was $1.2 million below last year's. He also offered an agreement from staff for voluntary furloughs. That plan would cut the number of layoffs to fewer than 10, and would preserve specialty units such as major-crimes and narcotics, which would disappear under the budget proposed by the county, Faulk said.

Investigator Bill Rumell, who works in the crime-scene unit, is waiting anxiously to see if he will be working after next week.

He isn't sure how his seven-member unit would operate at half its current size.

"There was a time at the beginning of March where we were working two homicides simultaneously and then we got a call for a suicide in Pennsauken. It can be very busy," Rumell said. "With only three guys, I just don't know how they would do it."