Art Hackett:
Attorney General Van Hollen, thank you for joining us. You've launched what some are calling an unprecedented lobbying campaign, having your staff on, with talking points, restore cuts in the DOJ budget. Why are you doing this?

J.B. Van Hollen:
Well, first of all, it's nothing I am doing. It's an unprecedented reaction to an unprecedented action. The draconian cuts given to the department are almost unheard of and would have such a huge impact on not only the department, but also public safety and law enforcement throughout the state to the point that the staff at the Department of Justice came to us and said, what can we do and give us talking points to do something with because we believe in what we're doing and we want to do everything we can to save this department. 

Art Hackett:
You know, you said your action's unprecedented, Joint Finance's action is unprecedented, but the budget crisis is unprecedented too.

J.B. Van Hollen:
Absolutely it is. But public safety is the last place we should cut not the first place we should cut. And quite frankly, the Department of Justice is taking bigger cuts out of this Joint Finance budget than I would submit almost any agency in the state. So we do have a budget problem, but it shouldn't be a budget problem that is going to leave people out there hanging high and dry when it comes to public safety, especially when there's a bunch of pork still in this budget that could have been cut out.        

Art Hackett:
You made the comparison before to other public safety agencies and we talked to state Rep. Mark Pocan about that comparison. Here's what he had to say.

Mark Pocan:
It's a little different. In corrections we really can't. You have inmates. You can't let them go. He does have an agency that in the last 2.5 years has gotten a 17 percent increase in funding, which no other agency in state government has got that kind of an increase. In the last biennium he returned $1.2 million to the state. I know it's a nice photo op when you return money. But to us, why would we give you money just to return it? We simply applied the same level of cuts to his agency as almost every other agency in state government. We assume he's a good, strong professional. He'll manage those resources well and cut where he can cut and protect the public where he can. I think the difference is his approach. Most agencies are not happy they're getting a cut. That's part of the shared sacrifice we all have as we deal with this deficit. I think he needs to learn how to address it within his budget like the other state agencies are.

Art Hackett:
Okay. If you have to address this, what does this mean?

J.B. Van Hollen:
Well, if we have to address it, we will. Regardless of what our budget is, we will look forward, not backward, and do the best with what we have. But if the budget goes through as passed by Rep. Pocan and other members of Joint Finance, it means significant cuts to environmental enforcement, consumer protection. It means cuts to our crime laboratory, and we will get backlogs back. It means we do less drug enforcement. There will be more infants and toddlers in Wisconsin getting raped, quite frankly. It is a significant problem. Rep. Pocan says we received money in the last budget, so we should take cuts now. We received money to protect these various programs, programs that he voted for.  Essentially by making the cuts now, he's saying well, maybe, he shouldn't have, they’re not that important.

Art Hackett:
If children are getting raped, that's a decision you're going to have to make. You're going to have to decide that's more important than something else. 

J.B. Van Hollen:
Well, and it's not that easy because, quite frankly, we have a limited number of people who handle a lot of different disciplines in the Department of Justice. So I could cut just about every position available that's not required to be filled by law within the department of justice and perhaps still have to make cuts, with nothing left to cut from other than our internet crimes against children program.

Art Hackett:
I want to get into the specific parts of the cuts that you're concerned about. I talked to your staff about this, and for those of you playing along at home, we're talking about Attachment 2 of the Fiscal Bureau memo on the Joint Finance actions, which is kind of like a spread sheet, and the concern, your staff said, is with the right hand column, these across-the-board cuts, not so much any one of the rows, but just that one column, and that was the biggest one. And we totaled those numbers up and we're talking about $2.7 million. Is that how much we’re talking about?

J.B. Van Hollen:
We're talking about $2.7 million per year. If you want to know what that means, we're talking about 125 positions in the department of justice. We're talking about 20 percent of our workforce. To come up with 20 percent of the workforce, you have to make some significant cuts in almost every law enforcement category that exists. And our biggest problem and why we're most concerned with that 5 percent of the cuts versus the other 5 percent that our budget would hit is, unlike Rep. Pocan says, and he knows this, we are not being treated equitably. Those 5 percent cuts exempted law enforcement and public safety agencies. The Department of Justice always has been considered one of those agencies. Suddenly it's not.

Art Hackett:
In terms of fixing this, you've talked to Speaker Sheridan, and I'm curious. You're a Republican. There are Republicans in the Assembly, in the Senate, and quite frankly Mike Sheridan would like to have some of their votes. Have you talked to any of them and said, hey, back off on perhaps some of the revenue uppers that you're going to make a big stink about in order to try and save some of the Justice Department's cuts?

J.B. Van Hollen:
Well, I'm a fiscal hawk, and I always have been, and to assume that I don't believe in cuts is ridiculous because we are the one agency that has made cuts, and I've talked to Republicans and Democrats alike in the Assembly and otherwise, saying that we need to be fiscally prudent, but we also need to prioritize. I spoke with Speaker Sheridan. I think he's a very reasonable man, as are most of the Democrats and Republicans in the Assembly. And because of that, I have great confidence that we are going to straighten out some of the priorities in this budget and hopefully restore some of this funding.

Art Hackett:
Bottom line is, I'm sure that if we walked into a school somewhere and said, you know, talked about this, hey, look, we're losing teachers, we're raising class sizes, and that's important too. And what makes the Attorney General's office so darn special?

J.B. Van Hollen:
Well, I think that just about every one of those school districts would also tell you that none of their kids are going to get an education if they don't have school safety and public safety and secure neighborhoods and homes. We provide services to law enforcement in so many categories that provide for that that nobody else in the state or federal government provides for. And if you talk to law enforcement in every corner of the state, every political party, they will tell you that they will be practically handcuffed if the department of justice budget is cut as extreme as joint finance would like to see us cut. And I guarantee you the school districts do not want to sacrifice safety. That is even their number one priority. 

Art Hackett:
Attorney General Van Hollen, thanks for joining us.

J.B. Van Hollen:
Thank you.