Adams administration officials dodged questions over potential raises and staffing shortages for public defenders during a budget hearing on Wednesday. Advocates say the status quo could be disastrous for low-income New Yorkers embroiled in the city’s criminal justice system.
“We are still reviewing what the pay scale and where the needs are, and we hope to be able to address what that should look like in the coming year,” Deanna Logan, who heads the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, told councilmembers when asked if defenders, specifically in family court, could receive raises.
Logan said her office would continue to “review and assess” what the needs are for all public defenders in the city.
It’s been difficult recruiting more attorneys for public defender jobs when competing private law firms are able to offer significantly higher salaries – and often, better-resourced offices – to the same hiring pool. It’s led to drastic staffing shortages – which continued to skyrocket during the pandemic – in legal offices tasked with providing representation to New Yorkers who can’t afford anything else.
As a result, more public defenders – overburdened with mounting workloads and little support – are leaving their posts en masse. And the backlog of unexamined court cases are causing some New Yorkers to languish in custody for longer than they should while other New Yorkers complain of subpar legal representation.
“Public defender organizations are in crisis, hemorrhaging staff due to years of stagnant funding that jeopardizes our ability to continue to ensure zealous legal representation for justice-involved New Yorkers,” said Tina Luongo, chief attorney of the Legal Aid Society's Criminal Defense Practice, in a statement ahead of the budget hearing.
Gov. Kathy Hochul allocated $40 million for public defenders in the recently passed state budget. Public defender groups are asking the city for $125 million in this year's budget to go toward increasing salaries, combating attrition rates and helping dig through the thousands of backlogged court cases in the system, which cause residents to languish in custody. The groups want $48 million alone for family court lawyers.
But the push from defenders comes amid an influx of migrants taking refuge in the city. Mayor Eric Adams said it will take billions of dollars to address and is calling for for drastic cuts across every city agency. In April, he released his most recent version of a nearly $107 billion budget for the upcoming fiscal year. The proposed spending plan is allocating $10.2 million to MOCJ, which is $2.6 million less than what it received this year.
This story has been updated to correct the total amount requested by public defender groups from the city budget.
