False sense of overconfidence. Right. Yes. Correct.
You know, attitude follows leadership. But I
know I feel like last year. Are you saying my
leadership gives you confidence? No, I'm saying
your leadership is full of false confidence to
be perfectly clear. Yeah. In this scenario, I'm
Veronica Corningston. Welcome to County Connection,
the official podcast of the Washington State
Association of Counties, where we dive into the
legislative issues shaping the future of our
communities. From budgets to public safety, infrastructure
to elections, we'll break down what's happening
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the Evergreen State. Stay informed, stay engaged,
and join us as we amplify the voice of Washington's
39 counties. Welcome back, everybody, to the
County Connection podcast. I'm Paul Jewell, your
host and government relations director for the
Washington State Association of Counties. We're
back in the legislative session. It's early January
2026. In fact, what is it, the 15th today? So
it's really mid -January already. Curtis is back
in the studio. Curtis, our policy coordinator
here for WASAC, and we're going to chat a little
bit about public defense. How are things going,
Curtis? Going pretty well, Paul. Start of the
session treating you well so far? It is, yeah.
First short session in this lobbying role. I
like the lower volume of bills, I'll say that.
So far. So far. Yeah, so far. Don't get your
hopes up too high. It just got started, but so
far. The good news is I was looking at the calendar
the other day, and cutoff is only about two and
a half weeks away. So unlike last year, which
was your first session, when it felt like the...
The Cascade of Bill submittals would never end.
Sure. This one's going to end a lot sooner. Right,
yeah. Looking forward to that process. It does
feel like everything's much more condensed. I
had 10 different... committees i testified in
this week i never had a week like that last session
so it doesn't feel like less work it just feels
like uh it's more all at once yeah it just starts
faster and they've got to cram it all in to a
much shorter period of time if you think about
it you know once friday is over of this week
there's only two two weeks and a couple of days
left for bills to be heard. So it gets only more
intense from here. That's for sure. Speaking
of intense and big issues, right at the top of
our plate again this year for WASAC is one of
our priorities is public defense. You've been
working on that now for a couple of years for
us. We made a little bit of progress last year.
Congratulations. We got another appropriation,
but then we had some really tough news during
the interim about caseload standards. And we
won't go into those because we talked about them
in previous. podcasts. If folks want to, if they're
not familiar with that issue, we suggest going
back in our podcast library and you can listen
and get more informed. But that, of course, is
driving even greater costs for counties. And
I know we're working on this again. So where
are we at with public defense this year? Yeah.
So just starting on the tails of last session,
like you mentioned, Paul, we had the first increase
in appropriation to what we call the 10 -101
funds since 2010 when really, they first were
implemented. Yeah, congratulations. I mean, that's
a nice accomplishment. Right. Well, I mean, I
won't take the credit. I think our executive
director, Derek Young, has done a tremendous
amount of work on that. I think the members really
rallied around the issue. Yeah, and have been
for a while. Right. I mean, at the beginning
of the session last year, it seemed like we were
going to have trouble even getting a bill and
getting a hearing, let alone being able to go
deep into the session on budget discussions.
And we just had some really tremendous mobilization
of our members. I mean, everyone kind of took
on the issue, reached out to their legislators,
reached out to chairs. That really makes a big
difference. Well, we finally found some champions
in the legislature, right? Which is so strange
to me that it took us this long, but there had
been previously a lot of resistance in the legislature
to this issue. I mean, they had... decades of
their own studies telling them they needed to
take action and they didn't. And then we have
been working on this for more than a decade really
solidly before you ever came. And we had a hard
time finding champions in the legislature. But
last year we had a couple of members really step
up. Yeah. Well, and I think that speaks to the...
kind of severity of the crisis in communities
right now yeah i mean there's it's not a this
is going to be a problem type issue anymore it's
a full -blown hair on fire crisis in a lot of
communities this is a problem right now right
where people i mean we can't enforce large parts
of our criminal and misdemeanor code and we saw
that happen this year in a couple of counties
right didn't we correct yes specifically i think
uh two counties have been the public face of
this crisis, and that's Spokane and Benton County.
Spokane County has a situation where the Public
Defender's Office is reaching caseload capacity
very early in the month, and they are not assigning
counsel in custody cases. So when we're talking
early in the month, are we talking like the 14th,
the 15th, the 20th? Are we talking the 8th? What
are we talking? So it's been different each month,
but, I mean, it's been single digits a couple
months, right? In October and November, four
out -of -custody cases. How it's been happening
is they reach caseload capacity. or they see
they're going to and they say all right we're
going to prioritize the remainder of our caseload
capacity for uh in custody cases cases where
the person It has to remain incarcerated until
they're tried. So they've been giving notice
to the county that they basically are full? To
the Superior Court, yeah. And what is that based
on? Is that based on just what they think their
capabilities are? Or does it have something to
do with the new caseload standards? It's the
new caseload standards, 100%. Okay, so they're
implementing those. Yes. And again, if people
don't remember, there's previous podcasts about
that. But to just be really short and sweet,
essentially the Supreme Court adopted some recommendations.
from the State Bar Association that did a study
on public defense caseload standards and basically
said that we need to cut them by a third, right?
Which means that the same attorney can only handle
about a third of the cases that he was allowed
or she or they were allowed to handle before.
That's a simplification, but roughly, yes. Yeah,
okay. So under those new standards, you're saying
Spokane's... Department of Public Defense has
been telling the courts that they're full up
by sometime early in the month. Yes. Yep. So
what happens when that happens? I mean, it's
not as if people who can't afford attorneys stop
getting arrested. What happens? So under Washington
state law, you have 72 hours to assign counsel
or 72 hours to have someone have an arraignment
once they've been arrested. You have to assign
counsel within that 72 -hour window. And even
a little sooner in some cases because there's
this presumption that a defendant will have a
chance to meet with their attorney before a trial
happens. So we have basically three days. And
if we don't get counsel assigned in those three
days, we have to let the person go. Now, if we
let them go, are the charges dropped? A lot of
times, yes. A lot of times. Wow. Have we had
any instances where people who were accused of
pretty dangerous crimes have been let go? Yeah.
I haven't heard of any in the last six months
or so, but when these caseload standards were
first, when the conversation was happening, there
was reports out of Benton County specifically
where there was someone that was accused of a
pretty violent offense, accused of rape. They
did not have counsel available, and so they were
not able to bring charges. That's awful. Wow.
So what are we doing about it? We've got this
situation. We've had this situation for a while.
I don't want to go into all the gory details
because we've done that in the past as far as
how long we've been dealing with this and kind
of the progression of the situation. And now
we know that it was made worse between last session
and this session with the new caseload standards.
So what is our strategy this year when we're
looking at... legislative session and thinking
about, you know, it's only 60 days too, right?
So what can we get done in 60 days? Yeah, well,
there's a number of proposals. I will say that,
like you mentioned, they've studied this time
and time again over the decades, starting with
the Indigent Defense Task Force in 1989. And
every single time that they've sent someone out
to study this, they've come back with some, you
know, It's a little bit different set of recommendations
every time, but there's one at the top that's
always there, and that's that the state massively
underfunds criminal defense services. Right,
which is something we've been saying too. The
solution is more funding. Why is that always
the solution? Always more funding. Well, in this
case, it's especially. And that's because county
governments, and commissioners will know this,
they don't have any control over how much they
have to spend on this. Right. The state sets
the criminal code, okay? The prosecutor is an
independently elected official, decides when
charges are brought. Yeah, we don't control how
many people are out there committing crimes in
our county. Right. The system as it is right
now, where we're mandated to provide these services,
mandated to budget for them, but also... have
to follow the lead of the elected prosecutor
and the state's criminal code. We just write
the check for the number that the system decides.
Yeah, technically, I guess you could say the
sheriff is out there deciding how many people
get arrested. I mean, technically, but at the
same time, the sheriff takes an oath of office
to uphold the laws of the Constitution of the
United States, just like other elected officials,
right? So you could make an argument that regardless
of how many people he wants to, or she wants
to, or they want to arrest, they're obligated
to when a crime is being committed. Prosecutors
the same way, right? Prosecutors are obligated
to prosecute. I mean, some people say they control
it as well, and I suppose there are decisions
that can be made that they have discretion for,
but at the end of the day, if people are going
to commit crimes, if people are going to break
the law, they are going to get arrested. Absolutely.
And they're going to become part of the court
system, and a good portion of those folks are
going to be considered... poor or indigent, right,
and can't afford an attorney, and then the public
has to pick up those costs. Yeah, and to be clear,
a good portion is well over 85%. 85%. Yeah. That's
actually a healthier portion than I thought.
Yeah. Wow. So that's the vast majority. Yeah,
yes. Interesting. There's probably some other
things to talk about with regard to that, but
let's stay focused on public defense. What are
we doing about it? What do we got in the hopper
this year versus what we had in the hopper last
year? Yes. Because we had a bill last year, but
we didn't get that. Right. We just got some more
money, which is a big piece of the puzzle. Yes.
So we got an appropriation that raised the state
share from 2 % of statewide funding to 6%. Okay.
the normal cost increases that happen in any
annual cycle, salary competition, things like
that. 6 % is not great, but it is three times
what it was before. It's already down to 5%.
Oh, boy. And with the state's implementation
of... or with the Supreme Court's order on implementation
of caseload standards, it's going to be back
down to 2%. So costs have already gone up in
the last six months to the point where we've
dropped from 6 % to 5 % share, meaning the state
has. And you're saying that very quickly that's
going to get deteriorated. Yeah. Well, with caseload
standards, we're required to reduce caseloads
by 10 % each year over the next 10 years until
we comply with the new caseload standards that
the Supreme Court adopted. We expect statewide—this
is a rough estimate because it's really hard
to gather all the data. Everyone's in a little
bit different place in how close they are to
complying with the caseload standards. But we
estimate that with normal cost increases and
the first year of implementation mandate, counties
are looking at an additional—in addition to what
they already spend—an additional $34 .7 million
that they'll need to appropriate in their budgets
to cover the— cost of these mandates so if we
were i mean just doing simple math we've got
39 counties so we're talking almost a million
bucks per jurisdiction obviously that's going
to vary yep it lands it lands unevenly across
the geography because i mean we got counties
with um you know over a million people and we
got counties with less than and i'll say that
number also that number doesn't count king county
at all though oh it doesn't no because king county
is a pretty far ahead of everyone else in terms
of implementing these caseload standards. So
they don't have the same like per capita. So
that 34 million is taking King County out of
the equation. Okay. Well, that's interesting
because that, that. That changes things a bit,
more evenly distributed. But we still have counties
that are near a million and some that are, like
I said, less than 10 ,000. In fact, I think a
couple that are less than 5 ,000 residents total.
So we keep kind of focusing on the problem and
some of the symptoms and some of the progression.
What's the solution that the legislature is considering
this year? Well, we're in a tight spot. As I
said, the solution is more funding. The solution
is for the state to take responsibility for that
funding. You know, only three states in the United
States fund less. than Washington State. Okay.
We need the state to step in and take a bigger
share of this. So do we have a bill? We have
a bill. And what's the bill number? So the bill
numbers are in the House, we have 1592. In the
Senate, we have 5404. Okay. Our sponsor of those
bills in the House, we have our two... So those
are the same bills from last year. They are.
We're just bringing them back. We have subsidies,
though. There's a few changes. Okay. So last
year's bill would have required immediate 50
-50 cost sharing. So hang on just a second. So
just to remind folks, because we're in the second...
Second year of a legislative session, the second
year of the biennium or the second half, all
the bills that were alive in the first session,
even though they didn't pass, they can come back
during the second session. They're still considered
alive and they can be reworked or continued to
be worked from where they left off or they can
go backwards and you can still introduce substitutes
and amendments to those bills. And so that's
what you're suggesting. We had last year's bills.
We have those numbers. They're good titles or
good numbers. We're just going to put some new.
words in place of the old words what we call
a substitute yes okay and you were you were about
to describe that yeah so last year's bill would
require an immediate 50 50 cost sharing for public
defense services with the state and then they
would cover all cost increases going forward
uh this bill the proposed substitute to 1592
and 5404 uh which have not uh been introduced
yet because we haven't been successful in getting
these bills scheduled for a hearing quite yet
uh we're optimistic that's going to happen in
the next couple weeks. But what these bills would
do is they would delay the implementation of
that 50 -50 cost sharing across the number of
biennium. So it would start slowly with requiring
the state to always meet the 5 % threshold they're
at right now. That would take effect in 2028.
Then moving up to 15 % in 2029. to 25 % in 2030,
35 % in 2031, and then 50 % in 2032. And then
in 2033 and beyond, it would require the state
to have all cost increases met by state appropriation.
And so it's the same idea, just with a longer
implementation timeline. It's basically counties
going to the state and saying, we absolutely
need... For long term sustainability, as these
caseload standards are implemented, there is
just no viable way. for our public safety systems
to work unless the state contributes to the cost.
So this bill basically commits them at a date
certain in the future to incrementally ramp up
their support to the point where they're actually
sharing the cost with us. Right. And it doesn't
prevent appropriations over that. There's been
a couple states that have adopted this model
where they make a statutory commitment and then
the state... in good faith, does its best to
appropriate what they can each session and just
staying above the statutory threshold. The two
states that I would call out that have been most
successful in doing this are New York and Ohio.
In both of those situations, they exceeded those
statutory thresholds and in some cases are paying
more than the statute. commits them to each year
in their appropriations. In Ohio, they're only
committed to paying 50 % of costs and they are
much closer to 100 % than 50%. Oh, wow. In New
York, they committed to getting to 100 % at a
certain date and they beat that deadline by two
years. So it's this formula that's worked well
in other states as they've made the transition
from a locally funded system to either a state
supported or state funded system. So we're kind
of modeling after some of the successes we've
seen in other parts of the country. But I have
to ask, Curtis, because our members are probably
thinking this as we're talking right now. I mean,
this is a problem right now. Yeah. Right. And
we're going to experience significant cost increases
over the next couple of years. Right. Right.
Before what you described as additional state
support actually kicks in. I mean, this is a
strategy or this is not a strategy. This is almost
a crisis. Yep. I would say. Not almost. It's
a crisis. That we're all facing today. I mean,
we have already talked about what's happening
on the ground right now in some places. that
don't have the funding, that can't put prosecutors
or, I'm sorry, defense counsel, that can't assign
defense counsel because they've run through their
caseload standards already, et cetera, and folks
are being let back out on the street. Why the
delay? Why let the state wait another three or
four years before they start really being a serious
partner here? Certainly, and just to say, the
statutory commitment doesn't, like I said, it
doesn't prevent additional appropriations over
that commitment. And we'll still be asking for
an additional appropriation to 10 -101 funds
in this budget cycle. But I think, like I said,
the statutory commitment model has worked well
in other states. It gives the state goalposts,
and it moves the conversation from one where
we're always saying we need more money, we need
more money, we need more money, to set a, you
know, in writing commitment about how much they'll
need to appropriate over a number of years and
you know i think best case scenario for us would
obviously be 50 50 next year but that's just
not possible in the current budget climate and
we did a lot of work over the interim with uh
some of the leaders especially uh so it's really
a function of kind of the fiscal situation the
state finds itself it is yeah okay but you know
counties are in the same situation In large part,
right? We're feeling the same way. We're feeling
the same pinches. We're making the same cuts
and the same tough decisions around services
that the state is. Why can't the state step up
and do something a little sooner? Yeah, well,
I think what we've heard is that... There's going
to be hard budget decisions made even without
additional appropriations to public defense.
And so, you know, the state's making tradeoffs
right now. And they're asking us, like, you know,
what do you want us to cut? to fund this. And
those things are like education and early learning.
And now you're not saying those are the things
that we want them to cut. No, I'm saying that's
where the money's going to come from. Those are
the things they put on the board, right? They're
like, here's education. Here's early learning.
Here's mental health treatment. Here's right.
All these other things, roads and bridges, all
the things that the state pays for. And, and
we know what that's like, right? You know, our
County commissioners know what that's like because
they're doing the same thing. They're running
through the same exercises, right? Someone comes
to them. in a tough budget situation like now,
and they say, I need more money for X, and they
say, okay, well, I'd love to give you money for
X, but I'm going to have to take it from Y, and
which one of these Ys do you want me to tell
them you recommended? And, you know, it's a tough
place to be. It's just, you know, it's hard to
say, because I've been in those rooms, you know,
it's hard to explain kind of how difficult some
of those conversations really are. And they can
be pretty emotional from time to time. Sure.
But... There's always the big but. We are facing
this. We're facing it alone. We've been facing
it alone. It's time. I think most of our members
would agree for the state to really become a
partner here. This is a constitutional right
to counsel. It's not something that the state
created or the counties created. It's something
that is one of the foundational, fundamental
civil rights of our... of our union. And it's
just so interesting that Washington is the outlier
that it is. Yeah. So the other big question that's
out there, and we don't have a lot of time left,
so obviously we're not going to be able to go
into a bunch of detail, Curtis, but the other
big question that's out there is our lawsuit.
So our lawsuit's still active on this particular
issue, regardless of this piece of legislation,
regardless of the state's budget situation. We
just got a Supreme Court decision on that, and
the decision was essentially no decision. What
happened was... We were found by Superior Court
to not actually have standing to sue in this
particular case. We appealed that. The appeals
court said, of course you do counties, county
association. And then the attorney general appealed
that to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court
denied review, essentially sending it back to
Superior Court with the appeals court decision
intact, which is great news for us. And so now
the lawsuit's going to move forward. So we have
a situation where... The Supreme Court and the
State Bar Association, excuse me, have adopted
these new standards, increasing our costs. We
have these bills that we're working on, and we
got a lawsuit. We got these kind of three balls
all in the air. How is the lawsuit going to be
impacted by any of these things that we're doing,
or how is the bill or maybe the caseload standards
going to be impacted by the lawsuit? We're pursuing
this legislation. In parallel with the lawsuit,
I don't think that the bill that we've proposed
here would change what's going to happen with
that lawsuit. And I think, like, there's a big
potential for a McCleary -level decision in something
like this. Like we've said, this is a constitutional
right guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, by the
Sixth Amendment, right? And, you know, just like...
In McCleary, when the Supreme Court ordered the
state to fund these essential services that are
guaranteed by the Constitution, I think that's
our goal with the lawsuit. Do you think that
that rings as something familiar in the brains
of the legislators as well when you're talking
to them about this issue? And is there much awareness
of the recent Supreme Court decision that upheld
the county's right to sue in this particular
case? You know, I wish there was a... bigger
sense of urgency from legislators around that.
I will say that we've had some conversations
with leadership where they seem very responsive
to this particular issue. And that's been encouraging.
And I think that's a big reason why we were able
to get that budget appropriation last year and
why when the Senate released its budgets, we
saw a tripling of 10 -101 funds. Like I said,
the first increase since 2010. And I think that
was directly from conversations we had with the
majority leader in the Senate. On this exact
topic, I will say that as we're having conversations
this year with legislators, it's kind of shocking
to me sometimes that they don't seem to be internalizing
the gravity. of that lawsuit and the decision
the Supreme Court might make later in this year.
Well, and just the sheer lack of support from
the state on a fundamental constitutional right.
I mean, it's really surprising. And, you know,
we were always in that bottom tier of, what,
number five out of 50 or something like that,
number three out of 50. And I guess somebody's
got to be there, but, man. In this particular
case, that's not one of the ones that you want
to be in the bottom of. Sure. And the states
we're there with sure don't look like Washington.
No. That's the thing. States like Mississippi,
for instance. Mississippi, Nebraska, and Arizona.
That's the only people that contribute less than
us. Than Washington State to public defense.
And if you think about the urban centers in those
particular states, it's not the same kind of
revenue that a place like Seattle generates.
No, not by any means. Yeah, it's very interesting.
Well, Curtis. Thanks for coming by. I know there's
a lot more that you're working on, and we'll
have you back, and we'll talk about some really
exciting land use and permitting stuff. I can't
wait. Just a teaser for the listeners out there.
But you try to hold up during the session, okay?
Okay. All right. Don't let it knock your socks
off. Okay. All right. Thanks, Paul. You bet.
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