Kansas public-defense agency asks Ways and Means to fund assigned-counsel, expert costs and targeted pay increases

Anne Sagan, executive director of the Board of Indigent Defense Services (BIDS), and Molly Pratt, a fiscal analyst with the Legislative Research Department, appeared before the General Government Subcommittee, Ways and Means, on Feb. 25 to press for targeted funding in the agency’s budget.

Sagan urged lawmakers to preserve funding already placed in Senate Bill 315 and to fully fund two enhancements she called essential: the assigned-counsel caseload adjustment and expert-witness costs. "Assigned counsel caseloads and expert costs are very essential to our operations," she told the committee and asked that the amounts included in SB315 "remain in the bill and is fully funded for both fiscal year 2026 and fiscal year 2027." Pratt explained she analyzed the original filed numbers and warned committee members that KLRD calculations sometimes differ from the agency’s revised testimony.

Why it matters: BIDS provides and oversees public defense across Kansas — including trial-level public defenders, appellate and capital-defense units, and an assigned-counsel program in which private attorneys accept appointments for an hourly rate. Sagan said about 84% of adults charged with a felony in Kansas receive representation paid through BIDS, roughly 26,000 cases a year, and argued the requested…