LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Dozens of Arkansas public defenders can breathe a little easier after Friday's Arkansas Legislative Council (ACL) meeting.
The part-time workers were hired in 2022 after the Arkansas Public Defender Commission was awarded $4.5 million from the American Rescue Plan Act to pay them.
Recently, though, that money has been on the verge of running out, which would force these workers to be laid off.
That changed with one decision from the ALC Friday morning.
“We put over a million dollars into the Public Defender Commission to make sure that those public servants will still be paid," Arkansas Sen. Clarke Tucker said.
Those workers were needed in the first place because a buildup of cases was creating impossible caseloads for current public defenders.
"We had a backlog of about 11,000 cases created during the COVID-19 pandemic,” Tucker said. “Two years ago, we spent a few million dollars to create about 40 extra positions."
That backlog is now down to 5,000 cases, a feat many in the state attribute to those funds.
But with that money on the verge of expiring, Gregg Parrish, the executive director of the Arkansas Public Defender Commission, has been at the Capitol this week asking for more.
And he got his wish.
"It was approved,” Parrish said. “We would be receiving $1.25 million, which will probably last approximately six months, to keep these attorneys employed, working on the backlog."
However, the approval didn’t come without some questions from legislators.
They wondered how effective the additional attorneys were and what the original money was used for.
One of the main questions was why there are still 5,000 backlogged cases nearly four years after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and when those cases will be handled.
Parrish said there are no easy answers.
"I can't answer that,” Parrish said. “There's too many variables."
Parrish and Tucker said lawmakers were ultimately satisfied with the explanation of what the money has been used for thus far.
“The Public Defender Commission has done a good job managing this money,” Tucker said. “They’ve spent it in the exact manner that the legislature intended.”
With the funding now approved, the public defenders can fully focus on tackling this backlog of cases—and all the new ones that come up every day.
Parrish doesn't expect the $1.25 million to last more than six months, meaning these conversations will likely continue.
“We will address this potential in the legislative session, which is coming up at the beginning of 2025, and continue communications with the prosecutors,” Parrish said. “They had money and hired prosecutors in their positions as well, and I believe their money will deplete next year. We're going to need people. Even if we didn't have this backlog, we're still so underwater.”