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Supervisors Warn Budget Must Solve Public Defender Workload Crisis as Jails Swell
Summary
Public defender office told the Budget & Appropriations Committee that felony workloads average about 75 cases per attorney—nearly double the level a recent national workload study found necessary—raising risks of delayed trials and prolonged pretrial detention; supervisors signaled they may oppose a budget that fails to address the shortfall.
San Francisco’s public defender office told the Board of Supervisors’ Budget and Appropriation Committee on June 14 that its attorneys are carrying average felony caseloads of roughly 75 cases each—far above the approximately 40‑case workload a recent Rand workload study says is necessary to provide constitutionally adequate representation. The office warned that the strain is producing burnout, vacancies and a risk of declaring conflict or “unavailability,” which would transfer work to external conflict counsel and could prompt a supplemental budget request.
“The impact of that is clients waiting in jail for their attorney to be ready,” the public defender said during a multi‑department hearing on the mayor’s proposed FY25 budget. “The impact is attorneys burning out because there’s just too much work.”
Supervisors at the hearing described the caseload situation as a constitutional problem. Supervisor Ronan said she would consider voting against the budget if the city did not make staffing changes to ensure timely access to counsel. “This is the first time we’ve had an average caseload this high,” she said, adding that the county’s caseload is now substantially higher than surrounding Bay Area counties.
The public defender framed the request as a modest funding ask to correct an ecosystem imbalance. Office leadership said 16 additional attorneys and four paralegals were recommended by the workload study to alleviate risk to clients and staff; the office described itself as underfunded compared with prosecutorial budgets, which it said were much larger.
Committee members linked the office’s capacity to other parts of the criminal justice system. Court and sheriff representatives reported that a larger jail population, rising prosecutions and backlogs make the entire system hard to process. Superior Court officials said felony filings now exceed pre‑pandemic levels; the sheriff reported a year‑over‑year jail census increase of about 36 percent.
The committee asked the mayor’s budget office and the Budget and Legislative Analyst to work with all justice partners to identify funding and staffing tradeoffs. Multiple supervisors signaled urgency: they said they expect next week’s BLA analysis and will pursue budget amendments if necessary.
What happens next: The committee continues budget deliberations; any changes to personnel or supplemental funding would be decided during the larger Board budget process this summer.
