MLM Counties News. Notices. Need-to-know Information.
Gov. Jay Nixon has proposed cutting $3.4 million from the Office of the State Public Defender’s budget.
The cut is actually the result of making permanent a withholding from the previous fiscal budget. In the wake of a study confirming the office was overworked, the Legislature approved an additional $3.4 million to contract out so-called “conflict-cases,” those which involve two clients in the same district.
Typically, those cases would be picked up by a public defender in another district, but the result was excessive time out of the office and on the road for the attorneys covering the cases. The moneys were approved to contract those cases out to private attorneys, and alleviate some of the burden on the office, said Michael Barrett, general counsel for the office.
Nixon vetoed the funding, but the legislature overrode the veto, forcing the governor’s hand: he ended up withholding the funds. His 2016 proposed budget makes that withholding permanent.
The office will not have to terminate any staff, or default on any contracts with private attorneys because the funds were never distributed to the office, according to Barrett.
Barrett says he plans to go back to the legislature to request the funding be put back in the 2016 budget.
“We hope that they will provide us with some relief,” he said.
