Office of State Public Defender requests $33.5M for 2027 biennium, seeks higher contract rate and 44-FTE plan to cut assignment delays

The Section D subcommittee of the 2025 Montana Legislature heard a budget presentation from the Office of State Public Defender (OPD) on a $33.5 million biennial request that the agency says would increase its base by about 34.6% compared with ongoing fiscal 2025 appropriations.

OPD Director Brett Schandelson, introduced the request as an effort to stabilize public defense operations after several years of shortfalls and turnover. “We believe this will be the most buttoned up budget we've produced for this committee's consideration,” Schandelson said, emphasizing data-driven calculations for the agency’s staffing and contracting needs.

Why it matters: The package includes a request to make a $12.5 million supplemental (contained in House Bill 3) ongoing, plus $600,000 to continue contracted attorney services that were one‑time-only in the 2025 biennium. The agency is also asking the Legislature to make ongoing a $1.5 million biennial (about $750,000 per year) allocation used in Yellowstone County to reduce a local backlog.

The request, and debate around it, focuses on three interconnected problems: an ongoing gap between legal work and available defenders (the agency’s shortfall metric), long waits to assign counsel in some courts, and a shortage or instability in the private contracting pool that the OPD relies on to cover overflow work.

Key elements of OPD’s request and testimony - Total request and composition: Mr. Hopkins, presenting budget figures for the committee, said the OPD’s 2027 biennium budget request totals $33,500,000, an increase driven largely by adding attorney positions and by making a 2025 supplemental ongoing. Hopkins told members the $13.1 million shown as a general‑fund decision package includes the $12.5 million supplemental and $600,000 to continue contract attorney operating costs that had been one‑time-only.

- New and converted positions: The agency is asking to convert a set of modified (temporary) positions to permanent status and to add new attorney FTEs. Schandelson described a five‑year plan to close the agency’s measured shortfall; the current proposal asks for eight new attorney FTEs in fiscal 2026 and eight more in fiscal 2027 as the first two years of that plan.

- Contract attorney rates: OPD has budgeted to raise the contracted public‑defender rate from $71 per hour to $90 per hour. Schandelson and Hopkins explained the $71 rate is an older benchmark and the agency is now proposing a higher rate to attract more private contractors and reduce the workload shifted to employees.

- Yellowstone County funding: The presentation noted $1.5 million in ARPA‑era funding was used to hire four attorneys and to support a private firm under an exclusive assignment contract in Billings; OPD seeks to make $750,000 a year of that funding ongoing to preserve the local staffing and contract arrangement that officials say reduced assignment delays.

- Measured shortfall and assignment delays: Schandelson described the OPD’s ‘‘public defender shortfall’’ metric — the amount of attorney labor (measured as FTEs) required to assign cases within a 14‑day target. For the most recent year OPD reported a 44‑FTE shortfall and approximately 5,600 cases that were not assigned within the agency’s target window; the agency said the average assignment delay for those cases was about 33 days.

- Family Defense Bureau and SB151: Schandelson introduced the agency’s Family Defense Bureau and said a bill (S.B. 151) would codify the creation of employee‑based units to represent parents and children in abuse and neglect cases. He said most such representation is currently done by contractors, and that converting some of that work to employee units would take two to three years to reach savings as cases are transitioned from contractors to staff.

- Technology and administrative investments: The presentation included several one‑time requests for continuing or expanding technology and development work — including courtroom evidence tools, an AI‑enabled data query tool (referred to as FlatSpot), a transcription/discovery partnership (JusticeText), and a proposed pilot to provide secure, state‑owned tablet devices or kiosks that incarcerated clients could use to access OPD’s client portal. Schandelson said these investments aim to improve attorney efficiency and case management.

- Fees and collections: Schandelson clarified that OPD does not retain court‑ordered OPD fees. The agency reported approximately $5.1 million in OPD fees have been ordered over recent years and roughly $1 million of that has been collected (~20% collection rate); those monies go to the general fund, not to OPD’s budget.

Committee questions and staff responses Committee members asked about recruitment feasibility for the requested attorney FTEs, whether the Yellowstone County allocation should be ongoing, and how contracting and vacancy‑management practices interact with the agency’s budget. Schandelson said many of the positions the agency is converting from modified to permanent are already filled; he said the supplemental for contracting addresses overage the agency experienced after transfers that moved operating authority between years.

Senator Vance asked whether the Yellowstone County funds were ongoing; Hopkins said the decision package requests $750,000 per year ongoing for that county. Representative Castro and others asked for further data on eligibility‑exempt case counts (youth, abuse and neglect, involuntary commitment), and Schandelson agreed to provide consolidated eligibility and workload metrics in a follow‑up or during the next meeting block.

What the agency asked the Legislature to decide OPD’s presentation asked the committee and Legislature to: (1) approve the 2027 biennium HB‑2 budget package that would add attorney FTEs and make the HB‑3 supplemental ongoing; (2) fund a higher contracted attorney pay rate (budgeted at $90/hour in this request); (3) make the Yellowstone County allocation ongoing; (4) approve one‑time technology and pilot funding to improve discovery, client access, and case management; and (5) convert existing modified positions to permanent status.

Ending note and next steps The committee left the hearing open for follow‑up questions and scheduled the OPD work session for a later date. OPD staff committed to provide additional data on eligibility case counts, vacancy and hiring timelines, and the operational effect of converting modified positions to permanent ones.