Council calls on mayor to increase funds for public defenders
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Around half of the City Council called on Mayor Eric Adams to increase funding for public defenders in the city’s final budget, which is due at the end of the month. File photo by Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office
By Jacob Kaye
With the deadline for the city’s budget fast approaching, over half of the City Council is calling on the mayor to up funding for public defenders who contract with the city and provide free legal services to New Yorkers.
In a letter to the mayor, 26 lawmakers, including three from Queens, demanded Mayor Eric Adams allocate $195 million to legal service providers, who have been given additional responsibilities as a result of recently enacted legislation, but not much in the way of additional funding to support the new mandates.
Public defenders have reached a breaking point, the providers and lawmakers say. With new responsibilities under the city’s Right to Counsel legislation, as well as increased discovery work created by state criminal justice laws, the legal providers say they’ve yet to receive the appropriate amount of funding to meet the demand.
“As the budget process heads into the final stretch, it’s imperative that we take a hard look at the significant harm that insufficient funding levels, wage inequality and rising costs have caused,” the lawmakers said in their letter to Adams. “If unaddressed this year, New Yorkers will be further disconnected from critical services, reinforcing bias in the legal system and eroding public safety.”
The sentiment was echoed by Tina Luongo, the chief attorney of the Criminal Defense Practice at the Legal Aid Society.
“We can't wait another year,” Luongo told the Eagle on Tuesday. “It's now and it has to happen.”
The letter comes a little more than a week before the city’s budget is due and as city councilmembers and the mayor begin their final days of negotiations.
The $195 million in funding was first requested by the City Council in its response to the mayor’s executive budget earlier this year, in what the lawmakers call “a first step in addressing the economic crisis facing these critical programs.”
Legal services providers have struggled in New York over the past several years. Like most workforces, public defense organizations have dealt with increased rates of attrition, often losing their most experienced attorneys.
Compounding the attrition issue, and potentially contributing to it, are also new demands on the city’s legal services providers. Last year, the city expanded Right to Counsel citywide, just as the state’s moratorium on evictions came to a close.
Several times last year, public defender firms halted intake for the program, which only accepts tenants whose income is within 200 percent of the federal poverty level.
In January 2022, when the program was expanded citywide, around 65 percent of tenants facing eviction proceedings had an attorney within the first week of proceedings, according to data collected by the Right to Counsel NYC Coalition. Nearly every month since, that number has dropped.
By December 2022, around 35 percent of tenants had representation within the first week of their case, Right to Counsel NYC Coalition data shows.
“Right to Counsel providers uphold the rights of New Yorkers as skyrocketing evictions threaten the livelihoods and futures of families across our city,” Lisa Rivera, the president and CEO of New York Legal Assistance Group, said in a statement.
“There is an urgent need for funding that matches the demand for these services, and a functional contracting process, so that New Yorkers whose rights are most threatened — our Black and Latinx communities experiencing poverty — receive vital legal representation when facing eviction,” Rivera added. “We thank the New York City Council for calling for increased funding in the Fiscal Year 2024 budget to support the Right to Counsel program so that more New Yorkers can stay in their homes.”
Public defenders say they’ve also been hamstrung by the state’s discovery reforms, which went into effect in 2019 without a funding mechanism attached to the law.
While district attorneys’ offices have seen increases in funding from the state to fund the increases their offices have seen in discovery work, similar increases have not consistently been seen in public defenders’ budgets – $40 million in funding was allocated to public defenders statewide this year to go directly toward discovery work.
“We have an issue where the workload of the attorneys that stay is forcing them to work more than they ever have,” Luongo said. “And when you get to that place, you start to ask, ‘Who is this affecting?’ And the reality of it is, it's affecting the people who it matters to most – to the people who are charged with allegations.”
In their letter to the mayor, the city councilmembers cited the need for funding discovery work, Right to Counsel work, general wage increases and more funding for homicide representation so that “defenders can keep pace with the increase in homicide cases, which far exceed original projections and funding.”
In addition to the funding increases, the lawmakers called on the mayor to work into the budget changes to the city’s contracting process with legal services providers.
Public defense firms have complained for delayed payments, delayed contracts and a flat funded rate that remains the same year after year despite increases in cost within the firms’ own budgets.
“The city must overhaul the contracting and payment process,” the lawmakers said. “The instability and insecurity that comes from very late contract registration, payments delayed months or years, and lack of regular cost of living increases hinders the ability of criminal and civil defense providers to retain and attract staff, maintain suitable workspace, invest in technology infrastructure and ensure the continuity of these consequential legal services.”
Luongo said that each year, the Legal Aid Society's contract with their attorneys’ union increases by around 3 percent, while their funding from the city remains the same – current contract negotiations with the union are ongoing.
Members of the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys rally during contract negotiations with the Legal Aid Society in February. Contract negotiations are ongoing as public defense firms and lawmakers call for increases to funding in the upcoming state budget. Eagle file photo by Jacob Kaye
“That actually is not flat – every year we lose 3 percent,” Luongo said.
“What we need is a recognition that while we should remain independent – because our function is so critical to be independent of the government – our funding has to reflect those realities,” Luongo added.
By addressing the flat funding rate, legal services providers will be less likely to use funding meant for client services to instead cover labor, healthcare, rent and other costs.
“Give us the increases to our healthcare, our rent and all the other stuff so that we're not using the funding that should go directly to client services for the infrastructure piece,” Luongo said. “That would put us in line right with other city agencies.”
In their appeal to the mayor, the lawmakers touted the city’s legal services infrastructure, but said that in order to meet its potential, more funding is needed.
“Our city prides itself on being a leader in the fight against injustice and human rights for all,” the lawmakers said. “Supporting a baseline budget increase for criminal defense and Right to Counsel providers, in addition to changes to contract flexibility, is an opportunity to ensure that low-income New Yorkers in need of legal representation have that access.”
The funding request drew support from public defense firms throughout the city, including in Queens.
“New York City’s public defenders represent tens of thousands of low-income residents facing criminal charges each year,” said Lori Zeno, the executive director of Queens Defenders.
“This essential role is provided by highly dedicated professionals who protect the rights of the most vulnerable in a city that chronically undervalues their skills, education, and abilities through insufficiently funded contracts,” Zeno added. “We applaud the New York City Council for calling for increased funding in the Fiscal Year 2024 budget and for standing with defenders and the thousands of individuals we represent each year.”
