BOISE, ID – Idaho’s state public defender worries that additional new state budget cuts approved by the Idaho Legislature’s budget committee will increase workloads and cause the office to lose attorneys that provide legal representation that is guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution.
Idaho State Public Defender Eric D. Fredericksen told the Legislature’s Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, or JFAC, on Wednesday that the cuts will force the office to cut training and reduce the number of contractors and overflow attorneys beginning in fiscal year 2027, which starts July 1.
Those contractors and overflow attorneys greatly reduce the caseloads for staff attorneys, particularly as the new office ramps up.
“That’s going to be the biggest damage that we are going to see: caseloads go up,” Fredericksen told JFAC members at the Idaho State Capitol in Boise.
“Right now, people are staying,” Fredericksen added. “People love the work. They’re dedicated to the work they do. When the caseload gets too high, we will certainly lose attorneys.”
Losing attorneys could hurt the office’s ability to provide effective legal representation to clients, which is guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution, the Idaho Constitution and state law.
Another area the office plans to cut back in is continuing legal education for attorneys.
With the exception of training for attorneys who work on capital cases, all training for trial attorneys will be online-only in fiscal year 2027. That means that if a specialized legal training is only offered in Las Vegas, for example, the office would not be able to take advantage of that training, Fredericksen said.
The additional 2% cuts JFAC approved on Friday for fiscal year 2027 would cut the office’s funding by $2.2 million, state budget documents show.
Fredericksen said that the office can absorb budget cuts in the current fiscal year. Launched in October 2024, the office realized a salary savings due to vacant positions that existed as the office ramped up operations.
However the office is filling its vacant positions and won’t have that salary savings available to absorb the cuts in fiscal year 2027, Fredericksen said.
What is the history of the Office of the State Public Defender?
In 2015, the ACLU of Idaho filed a lawsuit, Tucker v. Idaho, that alleged Idaho’s public defense system was inadequate and violated low-income people’s constitutional right to legal counsel.
After the lawsuit was filed, the Legislature passed a series of laws that changed Idaho’s public defense system, the Idaho Capital Sun previously reported.
In 2022, House Bill 735 changed public defense funding so the state, not the counties, would pay for it.
In 2023, House Bill 236 created the new Office of State Public Defender and repealed the old Public Defense Commission.
On Oct. 1, 2024, the new Office of State Public Defender went live, consolidating 44 county public defense systems into one new statewide system.
Because the current fiscal year 2026 is the first full fiscal year that the office has been in existence, Fredericksen told legislators that officials are still establishing what their actual costs are. For that reason, the Idaho Legislature’s new budget cuts could pose an even more of a risk to the office’s core functions, Fredericksen said.
This story first appeared on Idaho Capital Sun.
