Idaho House passes budget for new statewide public defense system
Idaho State Capitol building on January 11, 2023. (Otto Kitsinger for Idaho Capital Sun)
The Idaho House of Representatives approved more than $32 million in additional funding for the new statewide public defense system on Tuesday at the Idaho State Capitol in Boise.
The funding was included in Senate Bill 1202, which includes budget enhancements for the fiscal year 2026 budget for the Idaho Public Defender's Office and supplemental funding for the current fiscal year 2025 budget.
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Over the last two years, the Idaho Legislature's Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee has been setting budgets differently by breaking the budgets into two pieces.
The first piece is called a maintenance of operations budget. The maintenance budget represents a bare-bones version of the previous year's budget with all of the one-time funding and new funding requests stripped out. The maintenance budget is simply intended to keep the lights on for state agencies. The maintenance budget for the Idaho Public Defender's Office was included in an earlier bill, Senate Bill 1109, which Gov. Brad Little signed into law March 18.
The second piece of the budget is referred to as budget enhancements, or the enhanced budget. Budget enhancements include new funding requests or requests for additional staff positions.
The budget enhancements for the Idaho Public Defender's Office were included in Senate Bill 1202, which the Idaho House took up Tuesday. Combined with the maintenance budget, the budget enhancements bring total funding for fiscal year 2026 for the Idaho Public Defender's Office to $83.2 million. The Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, or JFAC, cut about $5 million from Gov. Brad Little's $88.6 million funding request.
One of the differences between Little's budget request and Senate Bill 1202 has to do with funding for personnel costs. Little sought to increase the rate for contracted attorneys from $100 per hour to $150 per hour. Senate Bill 1202 sets that rate at $125 per hour.
In October, Idaho transitioned from paying counties for public defense to a single, statewide system, the Idaho Capital Sun previously reported. The transition to a new statewide system came following a 2015 ACLU of Idaho lawsuit alleging Idaho's previous county-run public defense system violated low-income Idahoans' Sixth Amendment right to legal counsel.
Although the transition to a new statewide system is designed to address many of the concerns with the old system, the Sun has reported the process of moving from 44 different county systems to one statewide system has been rocky and troublesome.
Rep. Dustin Manwaring, R-Pocatello, acknowledged frustrations with the transition, but said the new funding in the budget is necessary to help get the statewide system up, running and staffed to ensure Idahoans' right to legal representation is honored.
'We have over 1,200 cases without an assigned attorney today, and we still have an obligation to correct and fix this problem and make sure we're not leaving clients without that representation,' Manwaring said.
After a 25-minute debate, the Idaho House voted 51-19 to pass Senate Bill 1202.
The day before, the Idaho Senate voted 23-12 to pass Senate Bill 1202.
Having passed both legislative chambers, Senate Bill 1202 heads next to Gov. Brad Little's desk for final consideration. Once the budget bill reaches his desk, Little will have five days to sign it into law or veto it, otherwise it will become law without his signature.
Even though the Idaho House passed the public defense budget Tuesday, the House killed two other budgets.
On Tuesday morning the Idaho House killed Senate Bill 1192, the budget enhancements for the Idaho State Liquor Division. That budget included new funding for shrink wrap that is required under the state's new freight contract.
In addition, the Idaho House on Tuesday also killed Senate Bill 1193, the budget enhancements for the Office of Information Technology Services. Senate Bill 1193 included $11.1 million in additional funding for new office space, security enhancements, emergency connectivity network enhancements, IT infrastructure investments, software and IT personnel transfers.
The Idaho House was not alone in killing budgets. On Monday, the Idaho Senate killed House Bill 450, the budget enhancements for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. House Bill 450 included $800,000 in money from a settlement agreement with Idaho Power to help pay for restoration of wildlife habitat burned in the Valley Fire in the Boise foothills in October.
Any of the budgets that were killed may still be rewritten before the Idaho Legislature adjourns for the year.
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