We’ve pretty much ignored the Harris County District Attorney’s Office since Kim Ogg defeated Devon Anderson back in November. That was an intentional choice, we wanted to let a few months pass and let things settle down before commenting.
If you want daily gossip and criticism from people claiming to be Assistant District Attorneys still working at the office, head on over to Murray Newman’s Life at the Harris County Criminal Justice Center blog and get your fill. It amazes me that people with graduate degrees in law act like 6th graders but perhaps law school does that to a person.
It is still too early for us to comment on the political impact of the election. Clearly Ogg has kept her campaign promises for starting needed reforms in the office, as we’ve seen on her new drug policy and the fact that she joined the fray in the bail bond case. We’ll see if she can maintain that momentum over time but at least it is a good start.
I think that one of the reasons that she’s had a strong start is that she did a bit of much needed house cleaning. We briefly talked about that in this post. As expected, the wails and cries from the ADA’s have been loud and long. So loud and long that it is clear that Ogg has a bit more dirt to remove if she wants to continue moving forward.
I think that enough time as passed that we could take a look at the employees and see who has come and gone, the salaries Ogg has replaced and the “experience” that the office “lost”. So I filed a Public Information Act to find out.
First up, I asked for:
A list of all personnel employed by the office on November 9, 2016. I would like the name of the employee, the position of the employee, the hire date of the employee and the salary of the employee.
I received the following (click here to download the pdf):
[pdfviewer width=”800px” height=”600px” beta=”true/false”]https://bigjolly.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/hcdao_employee_list_11092016.pdf[/pdfviewer]
Next, I wanted to know which employees left the office between the day after the election and April 3, 2017.
A list of all personnel that left the employment of the HCDAO for any reason between November 10, 2016 and April 3, 2017. I would like the name of the employee, the termination date, whether or not it was a voluntary or forced separation and any financial compensation they received upon termination.
I received two sheets for this request (click here to download the first pdf):
[pdfviewer width=”800px” height=”600px” beta=”true/false”]https://bigjolly.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/hcdao_no-longer-employed_04032017.pdf[/pdfviewer]
(click here to download the second pdf):
[pdfviewer width=”800px” height=”600px” beta=”true/false”]https://bigjolly.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/hcdao_final-benefits-paid_04032017.pdf[/pdfviewer]
Last, I wanted to know who the office has hired to replace those departed employees.
A list of all personnel hired by the office between November 10, 2016 and April 3, 2017. I would like the name of the employee, the position of the employee, the hire date of the employee and the salary of the employee.
I received the following (click here to download the pdf):
[pdfviewer width=”800px” height=”600px” beta=”true/false”]https://bigjolly.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/hcdao_hired_11102016-04032017.pdf[/pdfviewer]
I took the information provided and added a column to look at the seniority of the employees that left the office.
(click here to download the pdf)
[pdfviewer width=”800px” height=”600px” beta=”true/false”]https://bigjolly.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/hcdao_employees_seniority_terminated_11102016-04032017.pdf[/pdfviewer]
Okay, that is a lot of data. A couple of quick observations.
First, that is in fact a lot of cumulative years of experience that left the office. But the question is something along the lines of ‘do cumulative years of experience hurt the office’? And the truth is that I don’t know. I’ve spent my working life running chemical and manufacturing plants. During those times that I’ve had to do a reduction in force, the biggest impact has come from the loss of institutional knowledge. I don’t know if that applies to a district attorney’s office or not.
Second, the severance pay doesn’t seem to be excessive.
Third, the total number of employees has been reduced. That is something a good Republican should like, right?
That’s enough for now. We’ll use this as a baseline for Ogg’s term in office. And for the record, the response to this PIA was efficient and timely. I have another one that the office objected to and sent to the AG’s office for an opinion on releasing the data. It has to do with rumors that a former ADA is under investigation by the office.
Very interesting!
good work David
You may not like criticism of your DA, but it disturbs me that she allows murderers back on the street to murder and rob again.
Kathy,
You must have hated Devon Anderson, she let COP killers go according to HPOU.
I would think that at least some of those with 20+ years of service would be at or nearing retirement age, and wouldn’t be around too much longer, anyway.
That depends on their age when they started with Harris County. From a county website:
“Harris County is a member of the Texas County and District Retirement System. Employees are eligible for retirement when their age + service = 75 or when they reach age 60 with 8 years of service or when they attain 30 or more years of creditable service at any age”
It looks more like 30 years is required to be eligible for retirement.
As to David’s point on number of employees, if there’s enough employees to do the necessary work, then the reduction in total numbers is OK. If there’s not enough employees to do the work, then the reductions were not so good.
David, I’m sorry but I do not share your admiration for Ogg. She’s about the worst DA the voters could have chosen. I applaud her efforts on behalf of poor defendants, but she’s soft on pot and against the death penalty. She’s the typical liberal that, except for you and a few other Republicans, would make conservatives vomit.
George Soros reportedly contributed $500,00o to Ogg’s campaign. Enough said!
Kim has done some positive things and she’s done some negative things. On the whole, I like what she’s done with the Office. However, there are many things that are highly questionable. Although I’ve had my moments of wavering, I still stand by my vote for her.
That being said, the idea of getting rid of higher ups as being a per se good idea is silly. Set aside the politics of the whole Devon vs. Kim vs. Lykos vs. Mike spectrum and look at what the job of a prosecutor is. Trial lawyers learn something new with every trial and that why a senior prosecutor is a valuable asset. If Kim had individual reasons for the people she let go, that’s fine, but getting rid of senior prosecutors just because of a perceived “culture change” is silly. At the end of the day, the job of the prosecutor is to go to court and work on cases.
In the meantime, as someone who is down there every day, I think the day to day difference is actually better for the most part. Prosecutors do seem to have more discretion in the courtroom, which is a huge positive. I’ve been impressed by the increased willingness to listen to the Defense Bar’s arguments. The problems that I do hear about are coming from upper echelon prosecutors about upper echelon type of problems.
That being said, many of those complaints are legitimate, and I don’t know that I would be so quick to dismiss them as being juvenile in nature.
Kim does have some kinks to work out, and I hope she does. As I’ve said many times, I think that Office needs the stability of an elected District Attorney who serves many terms. That continuity helps reduce the anxiety of the rank and file and that helps retain good prosecutors. She has the absolute potential to be a longtime D.A. who does great things. She just needs to live up to that potential.