Centralized, Consolidated Backup Services Provide Mandate Relief to Counties

ALBANY, NY (02/10/2011)(readMedia)-- Legal research that would cost $75 an hour if done by local assigned counsel when unique or new issues arise is provided free to counties by staff at the Public Defense Backup Center of the New York State Defenders Association (NYSDA). The same research is often re-used to assist other public defense lawyers for even greater efficiencies and savings, legislators were told at budget hearings on February 9, 2011. Because many legislators present were not in the Legislature when the State began funding the Backup Center in 1981, NYSDA Executive Director Jonathan E. Gradess recounted its history. Well before today's demands for consolidation of state services, the Backup Center was funded with the exact purpose of ensuring that the State, which had delegated to the counties the responsibility of meeting the State's obligation to provide public defense services, provided support to those services in the most efficient manner possible.

Across the state, offices that provide legal representation to people who cannot afford to hire a lawyer in criminal and family court cases manage those cases more efficiently because of NYSDA. Thirty counties (forty offices) benefit from the cost savings realized through use of NYSDA's Public Defense Case Management System. Gradess included these and other examples of why the State's appropriation to NYSDA should receive "close scrutiny by the Senate and Assembly" in his testimony before the State Senate Finance Committee and the Assembly Ways and Means Committee. Gradess urged legislators to recognize that "cuts to our budget impose expenses directly on counties."

In addition to stating the case for NYSDA's own budget in both oral and written testimony, Gradess joined in others' calls for the Legislature to hold the line on further cuts to other funding for public defense services. Having seen funding lowered before the current fiscal crunch, obscurely named programs such as "Aid to Defense" that assist counties in meeting the State's constitutional obligations must be maintained, Gradess noted. And the Legislature's important step in last year's budget – creation of the Office of Indigent Legal Services to begin improving the quality of public defense services after years of crises – should be sustained. A state "sweep" of money from the dedicated revenue streams intended to maintain that reform would be a step backward. He also urged that funding for Prisoners' Legal Services of New York be renewed because of the essential work they do on behalf of prisoners and the State.