While Washington state lawmakers’ budget more than doubles funding for public defenders, those attorneys say the sum is still woefully inadequate to meet the needs of local courts.

Unlike most states, Washington does not bear the burden of funding the constitutional right to counsel. Instead, the onus is on local governments with the state historically only funding less than 3% of overall costs.

“They were paying such a small portion of the cost that the increase was going to look large,” said Derek Young, interim director of the Washington State Association of Counties. “In a session where they had budget frames and were making cuts to other important programs, I saw this as a really positive first step, recognition that something has to change.”

The new budget, awaiting the governor’s signature, would increase the state’s contributions to public defense to around 6% of total funding during the next biennium, 2026-2027. The funding boost is not guaranteed after that.

“This is a great start,” said Katrin Johnson, deputy director for the state’s Office of Public Defense, which provides supplemental representation to indigent defendants and disburses the state’s funding to counties and cities. “It’s about collaboration and education to help the Legislature understand the local difficulties and challenges counties have in funding public defense.”

For years, public defender offices across Washington have been struggling to recruit and retain attorneys. It’s a taxing job with a high workload, and not many law school graduates are inclined to relocate to rural areas, leaving these jurisdictions especially susceptible to a shortage.

Without an adequate pool of public defenders, defendants in places like Yakima County are left waiting weeks, sometimes months, to resolve their cases.

Washington’s Yakima County represents breaking point in state’s public defender crisis

The people most vulnerable to the state’s shortage of public defenders are disproportionately people of color, said Pierce County Executive Ryan Mello, who testified before the Legislature in favor of increasing state funding for public defense.

“Poor folks, people of color, sit in jail longer,” Mello said. “The longer they sit in jail, not adjudicating their case, the more likely they are to lose their job, to lose their family, to lose their housing, and things spiral out of control.”

Local jurisdictions provide the majority of funding for public defense, about 97%, often leading to public defense programs having to negotiate with county commissioners to increase funding amid inflationary costs for court services.

“It’s inappropriate to rely just on local revenue to fund a constitutional right,” Young said.

The state’s Office of Public Defense administers the limited state funding given to counties and cities through a grant program. Since 2017, funding has remained stagnant — not surpassing 2% of the overall money spent by courts to provide public defense services, according to data from the Office of Public Defense. The funding is dispersed to counties in varying amounts based on population and caseload size.

County revenues collected from property and sales taxes make up the remaining funds, but in Washington, local governments can only increase their property tax revenue by 1% without voter-approved ballot measures, failing to keep pace with the rising costs of running a court.

“The money we get [from the state] wouldn’t even pay for one attorney,” said Jeremy Ford, director of the Chelan County public defender’s office. “The problem is that the millions of dollars that gets spread out proportionally based on the size of your county or city… means us rural counties get less resources, which is always the case.”

Last year, the Chelan County public defender’s office received $81,000 from the grant, amounting to just 2.2% of total costs.

“The money they’re passing through isn’t really enough to do any substantial help for anybody,” Ford said.

Two identical House and Senate bills related to public defense funding died this session. Over a rolling basis, those bills would have made the state responsible for 50% of the costs associated with public defense services.

“Budgetarily, I knew it would be a big ask,” said Rep. Strom Peterson, D-Edmonds and prime sponsor of the House bill, citing the state’s multibillion-dollar budget deficit. “I’ve been in the Legislature for 11 years and always kind of knew about the shortfall in public defense funding, but I didn’t quite realize how acute it was.”

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Neither bill made it out of committee, but those involved say there was more support for public defense this year than previously.

“There has been proposed legislation for many years to increase the amount of state funding for local public defense, and this is the first time we’ve received more,” Johnson said. “It’s a constitutional right. We want to make sure it’s being done well no matter what jurisdiction it falls under.”

Peterson said he will continue to work with the Legislature to secure public defense funding across the state.

“We can’t just pay for more police officers,” Peterson said. “We need to pay for the whole system to make sure it works.”

Gov. Bob Ferguson has until May 20 to sign or veto the new budget. If there is no action by then, the budget will become law.

“I think the governor, being the former attorney general, has a really good understanding of the criminal justice system,” said Mello, the Pierce County executive. “He understands the need for access to justice … which really increases our chances at this part of the budget being signed into law.”

InvestigateWest (investigatewest.org) is an independent news nonprofit dedicated to investigative journalism in the Pacific Northwest. Reporter Aspen Ford, a Roy W. Howard fellow, can be reached at [email protected].

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News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/05/04/washington-legislature-budget-public-defense/