Subcommittee hears day 3 of Public Defense Commission budget; agency cites caseload, contracting and hourly-rate pressures

SALEM, Ore. — The Public Safety Subcommittee on Wednesday continued its multi-day informational hearing on House Bill 50031, the Oregon Public Defense Commission’s (OPDC) primary budget measure, focusing on rising demand for court-appointed counsel, contract changes the commission is proposing, and pressure on hourly rates and expense programs.

Senator Broadman, budget co-chair for public safety, opened the day by saying the subcommittee intends to “leave this session with a budget and a plan for the agency to fulfill the core statutory purpose of OPDC,” and added that he plans additional accountability hearings after phase one of the review. “The agency does have the statutory obligation to provide representation to every qualified defendant within the budget constraints that the legislature sets for it,” he said.

Jessica Kamphy, director of the Oregon Public Defense Commission, and Susan Mandeburg, vice chair of the commission, provided the day’s presentation and answered members’ questions about contract structure, staffing, and several programs the commission uses to fill appointment gaps.

Nut graf: The commission told lawmakers it is updating contractor terms and enforcement tools, proposing a lower first‑year caseload expectation for new attorneys, tracking a large unrepresented persons backlog concentrated in six judicial districts, and paying roughly $52.7 million so far through a temporary enhanced hourly program for in-custody cases. The presentation highlighted tradeoffs between cost efficiency, local capacity, and rising hourly and expert expenses that the governor’s budget proposes to reduce.

Most of the hearing focused on how OPDC buys representation and how it manages workload. Kamphy said OPDC purchases representation in units called MACs, which she defined as “MAC means maximum attorney caseload.” A full-time contract position equals one MAC. The commission is proposing contract revisions to improve clarity and enforcement, including clearer definitions of “brief,” “breach,” and corrective actions such as withholding administrative fees, reducing a provider’s purchased MACs, or requiring mentoring and oversight.

One proposed change that drew sustained attention is reducing the expected misdemeanor workload for first‑year attorneys from a 300‑misdemeanor baseline to about 200 misdemeanors. Kamphy said current data show first‑year attorneys averaging about 85% of a MAC, and the change is intended to align expectations with actual practice and improve training and retention. Representative Helfrich, who has supervised first‑year attorneys in private practice before taking office, told the committee he supported aligning formal expectations with reality.

Lawmakers pressed the agency for better unit‑cost data. Kamphy said OPDC is working with forecasting and budget staff to produce per‑unit cost estimates for different provider types but does not yet have definitive figures. She explained that nonprofit public defender offices and OPDC’s state offices have different cost structures — state positions are fully funded with position authority, while independent contractor payments often underfund staff costs, which she said contributes to providers not hiring staff or not fully funding salaries.

The committee reviewed workload and utilization metrics: OPDC reported criminal contract funding just under $280 million for the biennium, expenditures of approximately $209 million to date, and about $70 million remaining to be spent down. The agency reported a statewide contract utilization rate of roughly 89.8% and said public defense providers statewide carried roughly “about 30,000 open cases at a time,” with a large share of appointments being misdemeanors and minor felonies and a notable portion involving probation violations.

Unrepresented persons and the FIP program: Kamphy said 95% of the state’s unrepresented population is concentrated in six judicial districts — Multnomah, Jackson, Marion, Washington, Douglas and Coos — and that the agency relies on the Oregon Judicial Department’s unrepresented persons list (4,454 as of the OJD dashboard referenced). To reduce releases tied to lack of counsel, OPDC runs an enhanced temporary hourly program for in‑custody cases (referred to as the FIP program). The agency said it has provided representation on nearly 8,000 cases through that program and has paid $52,666,000 in checks that have cleared to date. Kamphy noted the FIP rate creates incentives for private hourly attorneys to take the highest‑value cases (murder and child abuse), leaving many misdemeanor and lower‑level felony cases to the agency’s trial division.

Assignment coordination and county differences: OPDC said four assignment coordinators have located attorneys for 5,500 unrepresented cases since May 2024 and identified representation for about 3,600 clients. The agency said some counties, including Douglas, have local assignment practices that create inefficiencies — for example, placing all cases on the unrepresented list and assigning from that list rather than appointing counsel directly in court — and that addressing those local processes requires coordination with courts.

Hourly work, panel and rate changes: The agency described an ongoing transition required by statute to establish an hourly panel by July 2025 and to move consortia to an hourly model by July 2027. OPDC currently pays a standard hourly rate ($135–$140) and an enhanced FIP hourly rate for in‑custody qualifying cases (up to $200). Kamphy told the committee the hourly rate history has created administrative complexity and that the agency is building oversight and qualification panels to manage an expanded hourly delivery model.

Preauthorized and court‑mandated expenses: Kamphy said OPDC has made procedural and staffing improvements in the preauthorized expenses (PAE) unit, adopted routine and nonroutine expense policies and cleared more than 2,500 previously queued requests. Investigators and psychological evaluations remain the most common PAE requests; investigators are budgeted in nonprofit contracts at about $82,000 annually and social workers in some offices at about $92,000 annually. The agency also reported vulnerabilities in the PAE budget: an outdated database, no statutory high‑end cap for case‑related expenses (“reasonable and necessary” is the controlling language), limited staff capacity, and legacy authorizations with no expiration that remain a liability.

Governor’s recommended reductions: Kamphy highlighted parts of the governor’s budget that reduce PAE and court‑mandated expense inflation and remove previously authorized travel time compensation for experts and investigators. She said the commission adopted travel compensation to help rural and frontier jurisdictions where local experts are scarce and warned that removing travel pay could affect rural access.

No formal action recorded: The March 19 session was informational; committee members asked for follow‑up data on ethical shutoff notices, hourly and contractor use, appellate success rates, comparative cross‑state caseload information, and per‑unit cost estimates. Kamphy said the commission will brief its own members next week on contract changes, expects a commission decision in April on several proposed contract revisions, and will provide additional data to the subcommittee.

Ending: The subcommittee paused the hearing to continue remaining topics — including the financial case management system — the next day and scheduled public testimony for the continuation.