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Peoria County approves COLA for full-time public defender amid staffing changes
Summary
The Peoria County Public Safety & Justice Committee voted to approve a resolution raising the full-time public defender's salary to the mandated 90% of the state's attorney pay following a July 6.1% COLA for the state's attorney.
The Peoria County Public Safety & Justice Committee voted to approve a resolution to raise the county's full-time public defender salary to the required 90% of the state's attorney's pay after the state's attorney received a 6.1% cost-of-living adjustment in July. Member Phelan moved the resolution; the motion passed on a voice vote at the committee meeting.
Kevin Lowe, chief public defender for Peoria County, briefed the committee on staffing and caseloads. Lowe said two of three recently offered entry-level attorney positions were accepted and that those two new attorneys will be sworn in next week, bringing the office's full-time attorney count from six to eight. "With those two, our full time attorneys will increase from 6 to 8," Lowe said.
Lowe described the office's broader staffing mix as 11 contractors and a total of 19 attorneys serving Peoria County when contractors are included, and he listed four support staff by function, including an office manager and a paralegal. He said, "As a rule of thumb, the public defender's office is gonna handle approximately 85% of all cases that move forward," though he noted the rate varies by courtroom type (about 50% in DUI court versus as high as 95% in misdemeanor court).
Committee members asked detailed budget and contracting questions. Member Rickard and others asked whether the county has reduced reliance on contract attorneys as the office hired more full-time staff. Lowe said the office has reduced the overall number of contractors relative to 2013 levels and that long-term progress has been made, but he did not have a complete multi-year tabulation on hand and offered to provide more data at a future meeting.
The resolution to adjust the public defender salary was introduced after the public-defender presentation and adopted by the committee. The committee approved the COLA resolution to meet the stated 90% requirement; the committee chair called for the vote and announced the motion passed.
The meeting record contains no detailed roll-call vote for the COLA resolution. The committee did, however, approve a broader budget package later in the meeting (see separate article).
