As the local demand for public defenders increases, so does the share of county funding for the office.
Athens County Commissioners signed a contract yesterday with the Office of the Ohio Public Defender to pay 75 percent of the cost of the local public defender's office for the next fiscal year, beginning July 1.
The county now will pay about $494,000 for the office, $19,000 more than last year. The state will pay about $165,000; 3 percent less than last fiscal year. The decrease in funding will affect all counties in the state, said Amy Borror, public information officer for the state public defender's office.
The contract signed yesterday is for the entire county public defender's budget, the total cost of which has gone up because of a 5.3 percent inflationary increase, union-negotiated salary increases and a decrease in funding for the office in the state budget.
Historically
when the state needs to balance the budget they do it through the public defender's office said Commissioner Bill Theisen.The state has allocated a flat $30 million for the next two years for county defenders' offices statewide, but the local cost of the office keeps increasing because more people are qualifying to have a public defender and the office has to divide the money up over finite resources, said Mike Westfall, Athens County public defender.
The four county public defenders handle an average of 2,000 cases annually. Their clients must meet federal poverty guidelines set by the Department of Human Services. A single-person home can qualify with an annual salary of $11,000 or less.
The state public defender's office is trying to get additional funding from the state legislature G
I don't think it would help in Athens until next year
Borror said.
When the state public defender's office was set up in 1976, the state and local offices equally funded each county. In 1983, however, language in the Ohio Revised Code was changed so the state could fund less than, and only up to, 50 percent of county costs.
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Ashley Luthern
