Jack Birch will be the chief public defender of the new public defender’s office of Kosciusko County.
He officially attended his first quarterly meeting of the Kosciusko County Public Defender Board Thursday.
The new office will be located in the Kosciusko Justice Building downstairs, near the probation office. All remodeling and construction should be completed by July 1 and cost just under $100,000.
Birch reported staffing is nearly completed, with four full-time lawyers, five contract lawyers and two of three paralegals. Computers and necessary equipment have already been ordered. Final furnishing decisions will be made at the next commissioners meeting.
During board discussion, plans were announced to provide coverage for defendants who speak Spanish and it was mentioned as a priority to train employees in termination of parental rights cases.
Other discussion included plans for the switch over from the current system to the new system, July 1.
The initial plan for court appointments is to keep working as before, but with an attitude of flexibility. Most cases from Circuit and Superior Courts will have ended by the time the new office opens, but the ones that do not will be transferred over and assigned to a lawyer on a case-by-case basis.
It is possible that some case assignments will be delayed, but the new office plans to ensure every case is given proper care and none are lost in the transition.
The office will use a program called Insight to work on and electronically file the cases, which will help maintain confidentiality.
Public Defender Expenses
Total expenditures for public-defender related expenses for the first quarter were $283,232.59. Of these expenses, $196,775.20 were reimbursable. Reimbursements of 40% came out to $78,710.08 for public defenders.
The budget for the new public defender’s office will remain the same, but the source for the monies will change as the expenses for the first year will be different than following years. Going forward, there will be a $50,000 budget for public defender office expenses every year. There have been no budget issues so far.
There were no reports of case overload at this time.
While members of the public defender’s office will work alongside the prosecutor’s office as well as the judges, Birch wants to emphasize that the new office will be representing the individuals of Kosciusko County.
Birch signed his employment contract after a few minor changes were made to that contract and those of the public defenders. In addition, the board and the chief public defender will both make their best efforts to maintain independence as an agency of the public.
The board also amended the job description of the chief public defender to clarify the bar fee for the Indiana Bar Association will be paid from the budget as being a member in good standing of the bar is written in the contract.