The rejection prolongs an impasse between prosecutors and the state over the state's insistence that the prosecutors take furloughs like other state workers or accept cuts to work hours to ease the budget deficit.

The two sides have not come to an agreement, so last month the state informed assistant DAs that their work hours would be pared by 20 percent beginning next week because they had not yet taken six of the 16 furlough days mandated in 2009 by former Gov. Jim Doyle.

About 90 percent of the approximately 350 members of the Association of State Prosecutors voted. Milwaukee Assistant District Attorney David Feiss, who is president of the ASP, said the association board planned to meet Wednesday night to consider its legal options. The board decision would be presented to all members before being released publicly, he said.

Prosecutors across Wisconsin have protested the cutbacks, saying their offices are already stretched thin and further reductions would make it impossible to maintain work loads and could affect public safety.

State Department of Administration spokeswoman Carla Vigue reiterated that if assistant DAs do not take the remaining six furlough days — or cut their hours a commensurate amount — the state would have to reimburse six days of pay to other state workers who took the full furlough amount, at a cost of $11.8 million.

Last month, the Wisconsin District Attorneys Association sent a letter to the Office of State Employment Relations contending the state does not have authority to lay off or reduce hours of assistant DAs without the consent of their elected bosses. Several district attorneys have received grievances from their assistants protesting the plan to reduce hours. Last week, Kenosha County District Attorney Robert Zapf, in a decision that hewed closely to the WDDA letter to OSER, agreed with the grievance filed by members of his staff.

Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne said he has not yet received any grievances.