Kevin Riordan: County adds to the cuts in safety net

Assistant Camden County Prosecutor Peter Gallagher's layoff notice hangs in a frame on his office wall.

Gallows humor certainly offers him and his 65 colleagues - attorneys, investigators, clerical workers, and others - one way to cope with the impending loss of their livelihoods.

"It's stressful," says Gallagher, who shares another coping mechanism with his coworkers: collaboratively doing the job.

Nearly 11,000 crimes, everything from thefts to homicides, are the annual responsibility of the Camden County Prosecutor's Office. The second-busiest in the state, the office operates in Camden - America's "second-most dangerous" city, where nearly half the cops were recently laid off.

"Talking to victims of crime is what keeps me focused," Gallagher says. "My job is to make sure the people who wronged these victims get punished."

Barely a block away from the nondescript headquarters of the Prosecutor's Office, on North Fifth Street, the Camden County freeholders are struggling with a $43 million budget shortfall. They've called for nearly 300 layoffs across the county workforce; the additional 66 pink slips in the Prosecutor's Office become effective March 31.

"To think I may not continue to do this job I love is . . . devastating," says Assistant Prosecutor Sheronda Mike, who works with juveniles.

Adds senior data-entry operator Danielle Curreri, a 10-year employee, "If they want this office to operate as efficiently as it does, we need to keep the people we have."

America's new budget-cutting craze is fueled not only by fiscal concerns but also by resentments. Certain politicians want us to believe that hordes of "public employees," "bureaucrats," or (most horrible of all) "union members" must be "downsized" because they toil for Big Government.

"I do not see myself as a faceless bureaucrat," says Gallagher, 30, of Haddon Township, whose wife gave birth nine months ago to their second child.

Mike, 35, grew up and still lives in Monroe Township and left a public-health career when she joined the Prosecutor's Office a year ago. And Curreri, a 30-year-old single mom, settled on a house in Somerdale the day she got her layoff notice.

"It's the next generation of prosecutors and investigators and clerical personnel we'll be losing," says their boss, Prosecutor Warren Faulk.

A 66-year-old Cherry Hill resident, Faulk notes that the suburbs generate about 45 percent, and the city about 55 percent, of the caseload.

So the layoffs won't merely affect public safety in the city.

"We are already operating at maximum capacity," Faulk continues. Losing 66 of his 230 employees, he says, could "jeopardize prosecution of serious felony cases."

In a statement, Freeholder Director Louis Cappelli Jr. says the board must balance the budget and "make certain that all essential services are provided in a cost-effective way that keeps the taxpayer in mind."

"We know that budget-cutting isn't just about numbers - it's about people and services. We're doing our best to find the optimal solution."

I accompany Mike to the second floor of the Hall of Justice, where families waiting for juvenile court jam the corridors.

The assistant prosecutor and her partner, Matthew Spence, work with attorneys for a succession of defendants, conducting what seem less like confrontations than collaborations in front of Superior Court Judge Charles W. Dortch Jr.

The defendants are, after all, children: Punishment is often well-deserved, but so is help.

"A lot of these kids, including from the suburbs, have serious issues. . . . Their needs are great," Mike tells me. "It's a whole courtroom of people working together to rehabilitate this child."

One of her recent cases involved a boy who broke into a neighbor's home - after his parents abandoned him in a house with no electricity.

And no food.

Heartbreaking stories are everywhere, of course, and the jobs of other public employees in Camden County are certainly important, too. Some may even be as essential as those of Gallagher, Mike, Curreri, and their colleagues.

Gov. Christie, who on Thursday told a West Deptford audience that he "takes no joy" in cutting spending, often talks about the need for "shared sacrifice" in New Jersey.

But I'd rather not find out the hard way whether the potential sacrifice of our public safety is worth the risk. Or the sort of cost that can't be calculated in numbers.