Management and Performance Review of County Government ...

Judicial and Public Safety Functions
For these reasons, the county must strike a careful balance between cost
efficiency and caseloads. When this balance is kept, a public defender office can lead to
a significant reduction of indigent defense costs and impressive gains in efficiency and
effectiveness.
RECOMMENDATION 7-18:
Establish a public defender office for adult felony and misdemeanor cases to
provide quality indigent defense while realizing significant savings.
FISCAL IMPACT
A public defender office could reduce Jefferson County’s expenditures for indigent
defense by 22 percent.
The estimate employs fiscal 2004 caseload and expenditure data from counties
with public defender offices. Average salaries and operational expenses were used to
calculate expenses. Jefferson County’s fringe benefit rate of 35 percent was used to
calculate benefits.
Startup costs were estimated based on a survey of discretionary grant proposals
for establishing public defender offices. These costs include computers and other
information technology, office furniture and supplies and information technology
consulting fees.
The average multi-year grant received was $272,000 in 2005. This is not
considered in the fiscal impact, but does offer additional savings if the grants are
secured.
Recommendation 7-18 2005-06 2006-07 2007-08 2008-09 2009-2010
Startup Costs ($75,000)
Savings $344,884 $344,884 $344,884 $344,884 $344,884
Net Savings $269,884 $344,884 $344,884 $344,884 $344,884
Page 7-67