By Ruth Brown, Idaho Reports
The State Public Defender’s Office’s enhancement budget narrowly made it out of the state budgeting committee on Monday, with a 6-4 vote from the Senate members and a 6-4 vote from the House members for its $32.3 million budget.
Under the Joint Finance-Appropriation Committee’s rules, a budget must get at least six yes votes from each side.
The fiscal year 2026 budget asks for 17.96 new positions for onboarding at what the office plans to make in-house public defense offices in Benewah, Elmore, Jerome, and Shoshone counties. Before the transition from the counties to state, 12 counties had in-house public defense offices. The rest contracted out services with attorneys in private practice.
The budget includes an additional $2.5 million for the Child Protection Act. Another $16.3 million for the operating budget will go to contracted work for attorneys, investigators, experts, capital litigation costs, and other expenses.
Initially, the agency requested $19 million. The governor recommended $37 million, and the JFAC bill set the budget at $32 million.
Rep. Dustin Manwaring, R-Pocatello, made the motion to support the enhancement, and said public defense is an essential service and the state must pay for it.
Rep. Steve Miller, R-Fairfield, voted against the bill, saying the transition to the state did not go well. Prior to Oct. 1, the counties paid for public defense.
“They were not properly set up to begin with,” said Miller. “There were a number of hearings where there was a lack of a defender. It wasn’t a smooth transition from the counties to the public defender office. A real lack of communication in terms of the attorneys and what they were going to get paid.”
The Office of the State Public Defender also had three supplemental budgets for fiscal year 2025. One included a onetime addition of $2.5 million to correct an omission from previous legislative appropriation, it passed 15-5.
The governor recommended one-time fiscal year 2025 funding for personnel that allowed the State Public Defender to raise the rate it pays contract attorneys. That supplemental for FY 2025 was $3.79 million and allows the office to raise the hourly rate to $125 per hour for contracted attorneys. Initially, they had asked for $150 an hour, but the price was negotiated down, according to Manwaring. The supplemental passed 13-7.
The committee also considered a one-time addition of $390,200 for the office, after the Idaho Supreme Court clarified that the cost of court transcripts fell on the state, not the counties. That passed the committee unanimously.
All of the budget appropriations still must be approved by the Senate and the House of Representatives.
Ruth Brown | Producer
Ruth Brown grew up in South Dakota and her first job out of college was covering the South Dakota Legislature. She’s since moved on to Idaho lawmakers. Brown spent 10 years working in print journalism, including newspapers such as the Idaho Statesman and Idaho Press, where she’s covered everything from the correctional system to health care issues. She joined Idaho Reports in 2021 and looks forward to telling stories about how state policy can impact the lives of regular Idahoans.