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Georgia public defenders ask for millions for conflict counsel and pay parity as committee presses for data
Summary
The Georgia Public Defender Council told the House appropriations judicial subcommittee it needs $5.52 million to replace prior ARPA-based conflict-counsel funding and $4.15 million (half-year) to implement a negotiated pay-parity scale for assistant public defenders, citing rising multi-defendant indictments and contractor costs. Lawmakers pressed for detailed breakdowns and said they will follow up.
The Georgia Public Defender Council (GPDC) told the House appropriations judicial subcommittee that rising conflict-counsel costs and pay disparities between state public defenders and locally funded prosecutors require additional state funding.
Umatayo Ali, executive director of the GPDC, and budget staff outlined two major funding pressures: an increased funds request to offset prior ARPA support for large multi-defendant and conflict representation (cited as $5,521,712 in the transcript) and a half-year, pay-parity funding request of about $4,148,091 to move assistant public defenders’ pay scales toward parity with prosecuting attorneys.
Deandre Berry, GPDC deputy director, provided the committee with specific figures for FY25 and calendar-year 2025: the conflict rate was about 12% at year end; contractors handled 8,716 contractor cases; total conflict cases were 15,800; the GPDC contracts with 125 contractors (about 126.4 cases per contractor); and the agency logged roughly 240,778 total cases. “We had a total of 240,778 total cases in the agency... 125 contractors... that came out to be about 126.4 cases that averaged out per contractor,” Berry said.
Committee members questioned whether ARPA funding — originally intended as a one-time federal injection during the COVID backlog — should be treated as an ongoing expense. Representative Stacy Evans and others pressed the GPDC to explain why conflict spending remains elevated and whether the agency is assuming every multi-defendant indictment requires unique counsel for every defendant. GPDC witnesses said the agency is reworking conflict protocols after a recent Supreme Court concurrence and is pursuing steps to narrow conflict triggers and use waivers or other measures when ethically appropriate.
Front-line public defenders described how historical pay practices contributed to the parity request. A practitioner explained that APD 1–4 positions lacked consistent step-based pay in past decades, producing wide gaps between long-tenured public defenders and similarly ranked district attorneys; that analysis, GPDC staff said, produced the $4.15M half-year ask. Leticia Delaney, DeKalb circuit public defender, told the committee that in DeKalb County state-paid attorneys can earn roughly $20,000 less than county-funded colleagues and described frequent jail-fight cases that produce multi-defendant conflict screenings.
Lawmakers asked for additional, circuit-level breakdowns. Chairman Gullet requested a follow-up meeting with budget staff to reconcile salary numbers and asked the GPDC to provide a jurisdictional distribution of large multi-defendant indictments and the size ranges for those cases. GPDC staff committed to provide more detailed data and said they are implementing internal reforms to reduce contractor reliance while preserving clients’ rights to counsel.
The committee did not take a vote on the requests; members scheduled follow-up briefings and asked staff for detailed spreadsheets to reconcile totals and to better understand which costs currently rely on one-time ARPA funds.
