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 funds are necessary to meet constitutional obligations and avoid office closures that force more costly private appointments.

Key dollar items and discrepancies: KLRD told the committee that the 2025 legislature appropriated roughly $61.8 million to BIDS (about $61.0 million in state general funds) and noted lapses and reappropriations that adjust that base. The transcript records multiple, inconsistent figures for the assigned-counsel enhancement: the agency’s slide and testimony reference $1,800,000 for FY2026 (and that figure is included in SB315 as introduced), KLRD described an internal calculation that would move assigned-counsel expenditures toward $29,100,000 in FY2026, and an earlier agency-filed number appears as $831,000 in places. The committee and witnesses repeatedly acknowledged those differences without a single reconciled figure on the record.

Sagan described expert-witness spending as a non‑discretionary category — investigators, interpreters, mental-health and forensic experts — and sought funding to restore what she said the agency has routinely spent (agency materials cited roughly $4.2 million as a baseline). KLRD listed a $3,000,000 enhancement request for expert witness caseloads in FY2026.

Pay, recruitment and positions: Sagan asked the panel to prioritize three items: expert costs, IT/data-security needs and partial pay parity for front-line attorneys. She said the agency is seeking to raise PD1 starting pay to $80,000 (a $1.7 million request intended to address pay compression with PD2s) and a $259,000 request to increase investigator and mitigation-specialist pay roughly 10%. Sagan also requested 10 new attorney positions for FY2027 that carry a modest FY2027 price tag ($132,000 for four pay periods) but an ongoing cost of approximately $800,000 in FY2028.

Front-line perspective: Justin Baravi, who identified himself as chief public defender of the Celina Public Defender's Office, told the committee his office has struggled to recruit and retain attorneys despite repeated hiring efforts. Baravi said counties and private practice can often offer substantially higher starting pay (he cited examples ranging from roughly $80,000 to $125,000 in some county offices), making it difficult to staff rural offices; he warned that losing new attorneys soon after training them undercuts long‑term capacity. He also described how heavy use of assigned counsel can be expensive overall: "If somebody is working on the assigned-counsel program, if they work 40 hours a week, 50 weeks out of the year, at $120 an hour, that ends up being close to $250,000," he said, adding that assigned‑counsel payments also cover overhead.

Committee questions and next steps: Members pressed witnesses on specific line items and the differences among figures presented by KLRD and the agency. The chair asked whether courts do adequate financial vetting of defendants before appointing counsel; Sagan replied that determinations about indigence and assets are made by judges and that BIDS’ administrative office does not make eligibility findings. The committee was reminded that the special committee on the state budget had made a motion concerning assigned counsel inclusion in SB315; the transcript does not record a floor vote on that motion during this hearing. Committee recommendations are scheduled for Monday at noon.

What the transcript does not resolve: The record contains multiple, conflicting dollar figures for the assigned‑counsel enhancement and for some reappropriations; the hearing did not produce a single reconciled number or a committee vote. Several details the agency deferred to internal staff for (further breakdown of shuffled positions, for example) were not supplied in the hearing and remain open for follow-up.

The committee recessed after questions and adjourned; recommendations on the BIDS budget will be made at the next Ways and Means meeting.