State grant exceeds expectations, funds more public defenders
Published 1:30 am Thursday, March 5, 2026
EVERETT — On Wednesday, the Snohomish County Council scheduled a public hearing on a supplemental budget appropriation that would give the Office of Public Defense access to state grant funds that will help pay for additional public defenders.
The council scheduled the public hearing for 10:30 a.m. on March 25 in the Henry M. Jackson Board Room on the 8th floor of the Robert J. Drewel Building at 3000 Rockefeller Avenue in Everett, with a vote to follow.
In December, the County Council approved an $882,499 grant from the Washington State Office of Public Defense’s Indigent Defense Improvement Fund to improve public defense services in 2026. Money from the fund is available to OPD each year, Snohomish County Office of Public Defense Director Jason Schwarz said in an email.
In 2025, OPD was awarded $451,616, bringing the total amount to $1,334,115 for the 2025-25 budget cycle. However, the two-year budget accounted for only $886,418 from the fund, leaving $447,697 unaccounted for. To use all the money, the County Council needs to approve the supplemental appropriation.
“The county anticipates another award of funding from this fund source in June,” Senior Legislative Analyst Nicole Gorle said during the Wednesday council meeting. “When that is received, another supplemental appropriation request will be coming forward.”
OPD is using the money to hire more public defenders because the number of cases full-time attorneys can handle was reduced in June to 47 felony case credits and 120 misdemeanor case credits per year. Previously, the standards per year were 150 felonies and 400 to 300 misdemeanors, depending on whether the jurisdiction uses case-weighting to determine how much effort a case would take.
“This year, we are using the funds to hire enough attorneys to meet the new public defense caseload standards promulgated by the Washington State Supreme Court last year,” Schwarz said. “The new rule requires that the County reduce public defense attorney caseloads by 10% in 2026.”
Because each attorney will see a 10% case reduction, more attorneys are needed to cover the difference, Schwarz said.
The new standards follow a 2023 study by the RAND Corporation, the American Bar Association, the National Center for State Courts, and lawyer Stephen Hanlon, which stated, “Excessive caseloads violate ethics rules and inevitably cause harm.”
In August last year, Schwarz sat before the County Council to explain projected spending of $5.7 million over OPD’s 2025-26 budget. The extra spending stems from the cost of expert services and contracting with lawyers to handle legal conflicts not managed by the Snohomish County Public Defender Association, the office’s main contractor, rather than the new caseload standards. But in 2027, costs will continue to rise due to the need for more lawyers.
While funding is in place to cover more public defenders in Snohomish County this year, and OPD plans to continue complying with the court’s order, the future remains uncertain, Schwarz told The Herald in January.
“Without new legislation earmarking additional state contributions or some change in local tax structure for law and justice, I’m less confident about our ability to cover the costs in 2027,” he said.
Taylor Scott Richmond: 425-339-3046; taylor.richmond@heraldnet.com; X: @BTayOkay
