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Public defenders urge restoration of $5.5 million for conflict contracts, seek pay parity
Summary
Georgia Public Defender Council asked the appropriations subcommittee to restore $5.5 million removed by the House for conflict contractors and to keep a $2 million pay-parity addition for assistant public defenders, citing heavy caseloads, attrition and statewide conflict-contract reliance.
The Georgia Public Defender Council told the appropriations subcommittee on judicial Tuesday that removing $5.5 million for conflict contractors would prevent the office from paying outside counsel who handle conflicts and would harm statewide representation. The council asked the panel to restore the $5.5 million the House removed and to adopt a $2 million addition the House placed to align assistant public defender salaries with assistant district attorney pay, effective April 1.
“Those funds pay our conflict contractors — the people who take cases when our office has a conflict,” a council representative told the committee, noting the office typically uses C2 contractors on multi-case contracts (generally $100,000 for 100 cases) and C3 single-case contractors paid about $7,500 for certain high-severity matters. Deandre Berry, who spoke for the council, said FY25 assigned conflict cases totaled 15,465 statewide, down from 17,716 in FY24, and asked the committee to restore funding so contractors can be paid through the rest of the fiscal year.
Circuit public defender Leticia Delan of DeKalb County described steep workloads and retention pressures, saying some felony attorneys in her office handle roughly 300 cases each and that her office experienced about a 44 percent attrition rate last year. “When people leave for more pay or because the work is unsustainable, cases sit while we train replacements,” Delan said, urging that pay parity help retention.
Council witnesses said the $7,500 per-case contractors are typically assigned to murder or RICO cases, while the standard 100-case contracts are used for many felony dockets; the council is shifting some work in-house with monthly contractors to control costs. Committee members asked the council to provide a breakdown of how many $7,500 single-case assignments remain and documentation for the $100,000/100-case contracts so the committee can decide whether to reallocate limited funds.
Committee members pressed for additional data and asked the council to provide by the end of the day a circuit-by-circuit breakdown of conflict assignments and the number of cases that proceed to trial versus adjudication. The council said it would provide those figures and historical information on state funding before ARPA supplemental funds were used.
The meeting ended with the chair thanking the witnesses and noting the subcommittee will consider the provided materials in the coming days before finalizing recommendations.
