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Public Defender warns council cuts will shift cases to private bar and raise city costs
Summary
Public Defender Jeff Adachi told supervisors that proposed cuts of roughly $1.9 million would force outsourcing of thousands of cases, raising costs and causing court delays; budget analysts proposed trimming specialty contract lines but the department says outsourcing would be costlier and risk constitutional exposure.
Jeff Adachi, San Francisco—s Public Defender, told the Budget & Finance Committee that proposed staffing and salary cuts in the mayor—s budget would undermine the city—s indigent-defense system and could increase overall costs.
Adachi said the mayor—s proposals would require about $1.9 million in reductions from his salary budget and could remove 11.4 full-time attorney positions. "If we save $1,900,000 by reducing the public defender's budget, we would have to lay off attorneys... at least 2,800 cases would have to be outsourced to the private bar," Adachi said, citing internal case-cost calculations. He argued that…
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