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A looming budget shortfall in the Wisconsin public defender office is expected to rankle attorneys statewide by delaying payments to them. Such a gap has become an annual struggle for the office, but it’s bigger this year than in recent history.

The $9.5 million gap is expected to last from February of next year until July 1, when the next state budget cycle begins and replenishes coffers, according to the Wisconsin Law Journal. Attorneys warn the state is pushing the private bar too far. It already offers relatively low pay ($40 an hour), and delaying it only adds insult to injury, they say.

milwaukee county courthouse (photo by adrian palomo)

But some attorneys lap up the cases, using them to sustain struggling practices. Others take a more moderate share of the caseload and could stop if payments are delayed.

Deborah Smith, head of the assigned council division at the State Public Defender’s office, tells the Law Journal “that the ongoing payment delays put a strain on the agency’s relationship with the private bar and will deter some (attorneys) from taking cases in the future.”

Some lawyers complain that their payments are already being delayed. “It used to be less than a month and now it’s a good month or two,” one gripes.

One Madison lawyer says he avoids public defender work out of principle. “I boycott SPD appointments because I feel it’s inappropriate to not adequately fund one aspect of the criminal justice system,” he says.

In 2009, State Rep. Fred Kessler (D-Milwaukee) sponsored legislation (that didn’t pass) to increase the hourly rate for public defenders to $70. Wisconsin’s rate is one of the lowest in the country.

Opponents to the legislation, such as State Rep. Robin Vos (R-Caledonia), argued it just didn’t make sense to increase the pay of public defenders with the state facing an across-the-board shortage of funding.

The SPD office in recent years has partially filled its budget gaps by transferring money that would normally go to benefits for staff (including some fringe ones) into the fund used to pay defenders. It made the transfer again this year, but it will only shorten the gap by a few weeks.

A Special Committee on Criminal Justice Funding and Strategies, composed of state legislators and criminal justice experts, is currently holding meetings to address concerns that both prosecutors and defenders are chronically underfunded in the state.

According to data presented at a recent meeting by the Association of State Prosecutors, about 10 percent of assistant district attorneys in the state have left their jobs, often due to low pay, the group argues.

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