The Missouri public defender’s system is asking for more funding to efficiently try cases throughout the state of Missouri. The office spoke to the House Budget Committee Thursday morning to outline its budget requests for the 2019 fiscal year.
The office cited an audit completed in 2014 that stated 294 additional lawyers needed to be hired to cover the 74,000 cases the office takes on. According to Michael Barrett, the director of the State Public Defender System, the current caseload of 83,000 would require 330 lawyers.
In addition to hiring more lawyers for the system, funding would go toward opening new offices in the state. Under law, public defender offices need to align with judicial circuits. However, according to Barrett, a lack of funding means some offices are serving more than one circuit district. Barrett cited the office in Columbia as an example.
“You know, as the southern part of the state has grown, we have a southern district now. But we have no appellate office in that district. So, the entire southern part of the state, on appeals which we’re required to do by statute is covered by our Columbia office,” Barrett said.
The requested funding would also go towards creating a new pay structure which would raise the starting wage of a public defender from $39,000 a year to $46,000.