Idaho governor approves increase in state public defense budget
Idaho Gov. Brad Little signed a bill on Friday approving a budget increase for the state’s new Office of the State Public Defender.
The office was established in October to consolidate the public defense offices in all 44 counties into a new statewide agency. The agency was appropriated $52 million in its first year to cover the remaining nine months of the fiscal year, but it has since faced budget shortfalls.
Senate Bill 1202 addresses those shortfalls, adding $6.7 million in supplemental funding to the 2025 fiscal year budget to pay for transcript costs, additional personnel and contracting costs and funding for Child Protective Act appropriations. It also enhances the 2026 fiscal year budget to $83.2 million.
2026 budget addresses contract attorney pay, salary increases by merit
In a blog post on Tuesday, the Office of the State Public Defender thanked the governor, his staff and bill sponsors, Reps. Dustin Manwaring, R-Pocatello; Jon Weber, R-Rexburg; and Sens. Kevin Cook, R-Idaho Falls; and Todd Lakey, R-Nampa, for supporting a budget increase.
The approved 2026 budget is $5 million less than the amount the governor first proposed after negotiations within the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee. That’s largely because rather than raising the hourly rate for contract attorneys from $100 to $150 — as the governor proposed — the Legislature settled on raising it to $125 per hour.
Of the 39,000 cases the agency has had to cover since it began operation, 9,300 of the cases require a contract attorney. The raise is meant to improve public defense coverage in Idaho’s rural counties, which largely rely on contract attorneys. Likewise, the budget is raising the rate for contracted investigators, who help contract attorneys, from $65 to $85 per hour.
Attorney shortages remains the agency’s biggest challenge, agency spokesman Patrick Orr told the Sun.
The budget appropriation seeks to address that challenge, by adding $6.4 million in merit-based salary increases, increasing pay for attorneys handling complex litigation and making wages competitive with similar agencies like the Idaho Office of the Attorney General.
After the agency took over Idaho public defense, the agency changed its pay structure based on an attorney’s length of service. This led several experienced attorneys in Idaho’s more populated regions to resign after receiving pay cuts ranging from $5,000 to $40,000, the Idaho Capital Sun previously reported.
“We need more attorneys,” Orr said. “That’s why we are so thankful for the support from the governor’s office and the Legislature. We’re confident our new salary matrix and increased hourly rate for contract attorneys makes us competitive. Public defense is one of those vitally important jobs in society where you have to find the right people to do the work. Public defense is not an easy job. It’s hard. But it matters.”