County to increase pay, number of public defenders

Monday, December 27, 2021
Judge Matt Headley

In a decision that’s been coming for a number of years, Putnam County will increase both the number of public defenders serving the county, as well as the wages for those positions.

In a unanimous vote recently, the Putnam County Council approved a one-year plan for the increased cost to be funded through the county public defender fund.

In 2023 and beyond, the Council will have to consider how to budget for the increase.

The request, made in person by Putnam Circuit Court Judge Matt Headley on behalf of himself, Superior Court Judge Denny Bridges and Magistrate Melinda Jackman-Hanlin, was prompted by the recent resignation of a public defender.

“We just lost another public defender last week for a similar position in another county that pays two times more and only has one half of the cases,” the three judges wrote in a letter to the Council and Putnam County Commissioners. “The percentage of public defender assigned cases continues to rise. Right now, only one Putnam County-based attorney does any public defender work.

“We need to pay more and reduce caseload.”

With Headley’s presentation, he had prepared a chart comparing Putnam with several counties that are either adjacent or have similar populations in Western Indiana — Hendricks, Owen, Clay, Greene, Morgan, Knox and Montgomery.

While Hendricks is a bit of an outlier with its population of 175,000 residents, the $65,000 salary it pays part-time public defenders is well beyond the $43,000 Putnam pays.

Putnam County only employs part-time public defenders on a contractual basis.

Even other counties, though, are allocating more to their public defender office relative to population.

“It’s pretty sad when Clay County, with a population of about two thirds of Putnam County, has a higher budget than Putnam County,” the letter stated. “Or that Knox and Montgomery counties (with similar populations) have double the budget for these services.”

Clay’s budget of $282,000 is roughly the same as Putnam’s, while Montgomery budgets $577,000 and Knox allots $580,000.

Ultimately, the Council acted on the judges’ recommendation to continue with the contracted public defenders, but with a pay increase from $43,000 to $50,000 and with an increased number of public defenders.

The county currently has five part-time public defenders. In 2022, there will be a total of 6-1/2 part-time public defenders — two for Circuit Court, 2-1/2 for Superior Court and two dedicated to Child in Need of Services and Termination of Parental rights cases.

This will mark an estimated increase of $90,000 a year for the public defenders budget.

One other proposal was to go through the State Public Defender Commission, but the judges estimated this would come at a cost $120,00 beyond the contract route.

Meanwhile, a third proposal was to pay the attorneys an hourly rate, but the judges noted this would most likely be “substantially higher” than the other plans.

The request was ultimately met with sympathy from the council, with Phil Gick noting that the addition of a magistrate in 2019 was due to increased cases, so it would follow that more attorneys are needed.

“We’ve been kicking this can for a long time and I think it’s probably time that we act,” Council President Dave Fuhrman said.

The increase will be funded in 2022 by the public defender fund, which is funded by charges to those who use a public defender and are convicted — $50 for misdemeanors and $100 for felonies.

While collection rates are low, the fund hasn’t been utilized in several years and has grown from $120,000 to $144,000 during 2021.

Councilman Jay Alcorn asked if it would make sense for the council to contribute some money in 2022 to make the budget stretch further. Other council members said they would prefer to deal with such questions at budget time, which won’t be until summer 2022 when planning for 2023 takes place.

Danny Wallace made the motion to approve the plan, with Alcorn seconding. Keith Berry, Larry Parker, Stephanie Campbell and Gick all joined with their affirmative votes.

Meeting for the final time in 2021, the Council also addressed a few housekeeping items.

• All council appointments to various boards will stay the same, except that Alcorn will replace Berry on the Putnam County Community Foundation Board.

Other assignments include Alcorn to the County Plan Commission; Campbell to West Central Solid Waste and the Putnam County Board of Health; Fuhrman to the Cemetery Board, EMA, LEPC and Community Corrections; Gick to the 911 Board, Greencastle/Putnam County Development Center, Thrive West Central and Putnam County Park Board liaison; Parker as Commissioners liaison; and Wallace to the Operation Life board, Humane Society of Putnam County and pretrial release program.

The Council also re-appointed Kayla Flegal and Barbara Boese to the Putnam County Public Library Board.

• Council meeting dates will remain the same in 2022 — 6:30 p.m. on the third Tuesday of each month on the first floor of the Putnam County Courthouse.

• The Council also agreed to again pay overtime rather than granting compensatory for the Putnam County Health Department in 2022.

This has been the case at the Health Department since not long after the COVID-19 pandemic began, as there is simply not enough time for employees to take the extra time off needed to make up for extra time worked.

“We feel for the health department,” Fuhrman said. “They’ve been the busiest group in the county this year.”

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  • Matt Headley and Denny Bridges finessed us all into giving them a magistrate they don't even need, at a cost of a couple hundred grand per year in tax dollars. Now we're stuck with it forever. A job that basically does a bunch of their work for them so they all three can work part-time hours while collecting 200k salaries. Meanwhile, people apparently still have to wait months for a hearing, according to the court stats on IN.gov they actually closed fewer cases in 2019! Also the number of reported criminal and juvenile cases filed annually in their courts has been trending downard since 2017...

    -- Posted by Raker on Wed, Dec 29, 2021, at 8:26 AM
  • I recommend people to read this article about the Sullivan County courts, and pay attention to the accusations made by the elected state rep. and judges

    https://www.tribstar.com/news/local_news/bill-puts-sullivan-county-in-danger-of-...

    Also, just an interesting note that in 2017 Headley referred to Sullivan County in his magistrate request letter

    -- Posted by Raker on Wed, Dec 29, 2021, at 12:06 PM
  • I actually read the referenced article but need to read it again, on paper, with a marker and a note pad. Very interesting. Thanks, RAKER.

    -- Posted by Prince of Stardust Hills on Wed, Dec 29, 2021, at 2:38 PM
  • These judges pass cases to Rockville judge or state court. I totally agree with Raker

    -- Posted by Money wise on Wed, Dec 29, 2021, at 3:26 PM
  • Raker must have spent a little too much time at the PCJ or something because of the backlog. The magistrate position didn’t take effect until 2019. It’s a bit unfair to use 2019 as your baseline as the courts adjusted to the new court and the magistrate court got up to speed.

    Of course COVID hit in 2020, so that’s not really a good barometer either.

    I think the general consensus around town is that folks are getting court dates quicker in the cases that matter most: divorce, paternity, child abuse/neglect, protective order, and small claims.

    I think the judges are trying to prevent the turnover in public defenders with the increase in pay. They call them part-time, but does anyone really want a part-time attorney.l? Local attorneys won’t take the positions because they can make more in private practice. And when the PDs resign or leave to take another job, that has to slow things down quite a bit as the court has to find someone to replace them. I can’t imagine a new attorney is going to be prepared to go to trial the day they are appointed.

    Might also want to check your info on the judges’ salary, I don’t think they make that much either.

    -- Posted by The Crusty Curmudgeon on Thu, Dec 30, 2021, at 12:27 PM
  • @The Crusty Curmudgeon The new magistrate started in July of 2019, so for 6 months they had the help and still closed fewer cases?

    Being there for 6 months of the year its reasonable to expect there to be at least a slight increase in criminal and juvenile cases closed, not fewer...

    I'm not following your logic or definition of a 'backlog', there's always pending cases, right? And your comment about nobody wanting a 'part-time attorney' just because they're only a public defender part-time? Give me a break that's so asinine. So your saying that in 2019 so many public defenders quit in the middle of so many cases that it caused the disposed case count to be significantly lower? Nope I don't buy it.

    A judges salary I believe is over $165,000, and the health benefits and retirement plan are around $30,000 per year if I'm remembering correctly, it's been a few years since I looked it up. So just about right at 200k, if not more in compensation and taxpayer cost...

    And not that it's any of your business, but yes I have spent a few hours in a jail cell in another county, when I failed to appear for an unpaid traffic ticket and turned myself in, but that was 20 years ago. And that's it, but I'm not trying to judge someone on their experiences with jail right now

    -- Posted by Raker on Thu, Dec 30, 2021, at 2:24 PM
  • Something else that stood out to me in that Sullivan Co. article was the political advantage of having a magistrate in a county with only a couple judges that are in the same party. They get to pick the magistrate, who will likely run to be judge when one retires. Having experience and name recognition of being a magistrate is a definite advantage in an election. It seems like this would be a factor in the decision process of whether a new judge or magistrate is needed, for someone looking at the party politics.

    -- Posted by Raker on Thu, Dec 30, 2021, at 3:36 PM
  • RAKER, I caught that, too. And weren't they both democrats? I'm a bit surprised this caught your ire. I'm giving you credit for what I believe is an even-handed opinion, if, indeed, there is some gerrymandering involved.

    I'm staying out of this opinion-wise because it is so far above my paygrade and comprehension level, but it is interesting.

    -- Posted by Prince of Stardust Hills on Thu, Dec 30, 2021, at 5:45 PM
  • @The Crusty Curmudgeon I took a minute to check online about the salaries just for accuracy's sake, and you were right that I was a little off on the amount. According to salary.com, the average judge's salary in Indiana is 167,000/yr, but that's actually high, according to the IN.gov state employee salary database. According to that, Bridges and Headley annual salary is $159,511.81. I read some state judicial committee records online a few years ago that said the benefits package for the judges cost over 30k/yr and that it's similar to what our state elected officials get, if I'm remembering correctly, but those don't seem to be available online anymore. Our magistrate, Mrs. Hanlin's annual salary is 80% of the judge's salary, by law, which matches the database's listed salary of $127,609.29.

    Some interesting points about the timing of Headley's magistrate request that happened in 2017 which was going to be considered in the 2018 state legislative session starting that coming January: The state had conducted a study in 2016 on indiana courts in order to more accurately account for the time needed to handle cases. They had every judge for a certain period of time keep track of how they spent their time each day, and on which types of cases. This is the first time they had done this for all judges instead of studying just a small sample. The findings resulted in drastically reduced amounts of estimated time that a court needed for several different case types, especially CHINS and termination of parental rights cases, starting in 2017. Termination of parent rights cases went from 475 minutes to 124, and CHINS from 209 to 176. But these changes wouldn't be seen until April of 2018. Also, just an observation is that these are two types of cases that are confidential and the number of cases being reported can't be independently verified. This change in the weighted caseload (WCL) reporting would reflect a more accurate accounting of how much time courts are spending on cases, but also would necessarily lower the WCL scores for courts.

    Another point: the courts did, in fact start receiving a huge increase in CHINS cases filed in 2016. But this was due to policy changes at DCS, and complaints of lack of funding and caseworkers being overloaded. It was described as a 'CHINS tsunami'. I speculate that because it was an election year that this was possibly done to draw attention and because of the staffing issues. The DCS director even resigned in 2017 in a controversial letter made public stating her frustrations and that the lack of funding was going to cost children's lives. Indiana has went on to be ranked #1 in the US for child abuse fatality rates and second in child maltreatment based on what they report to DHHS (dept. of health and human services). But internally, the state is saying the fatality rate was only 61 in 2019 versus the 116 they reported to DHHS. So, all these drastically high numbers could really just be lies to receive more funding, while scaring everyone into thinking things are far worse than they are. A few years ago after reading about this, I went to the DCS webpage and was looking at the monthly reporting for 2016 and noticed an error where they had reported more than double the statewide cases for August than all other months. But there didn't seem to be any obvious explanation when studying the numbers. I just noticed when looking at the report online that the numbers were corrected in June 2020 (the report had a note when it had been modified), but this is of course after all the reporting about the rise in cases. I also recalled the new DCS director discussing in a short interview on the DCS site that they always received the most reports in August because it related to kids going back to school. You could say about the reporting error oh, that was just a mistake, but considering that doubling the number of cases in the busiest month of the year would likely raise the total for the year by several points and help bring more attention to the funding issue, you could also speculate that it wasn't a mistake, since it's a software program and it's hard to imagine somebody manually tallying all this data every month. Btw, I do still have a copy of the August 2016 DCS report that I downloaded several years ago showing the wrong totals.

    So regarding the Sullivan Co. courts, the takeaway to me is that magistrates are seen as political advantages in county courts with only a couple judges of the same party, because they didn't care about the magistrate all these years until right after they lost to the democrats. Judges have little turnover and can serve for decades. And, that the case reporting numbers are basically just an honors system that can be manipulated.

    Finally, in summary, Headley knew that the WCL numbers would be several points lower for 2017 due to the changes that would more accurately reflect how much time the court actually spends on cases. But nobody would know until April 2018 when the judicial report was published. He even blamed the rise in the WCL on the CHINS and termination of parental rights cases while knowing about the changes in case minutes that had already been enacted. And, being in his position, likely knew that the flood of CHINS cases was a policy decision and related to funding issues with DCS that would eventually be corrected, bringing those case numbers back closer to normal levels, which has already occurred. The temporary rise in cases put them at the top of the list of needing to receive an additional judicial officer that year, where the study committee would only be choosing a handful of the courts in most need of the help. Where Headley's court WCL number was reportedly 1.52 in 2016, in 2018 it had already went down to 1.18, where a WCL score of 1 represents the average amount of work a judge would normally perform. That rating wouldn't even be in the top 20 of counties in most need of additional resources.

    My point is that having a magistrate doesn't at all help Putnam Co., all it does is free up time for the judges, who are really their own bosses, make their own schedules and answer to no one. And I've commented before about witnessing Headley in 2017 showing up for work at 10:30 on a Monday, to work in a courthouse that's only open 35 hours a week. I just find it all so unethical... and then on the other hand there were a few teachers that got accused of changing standardized test scores that also determine school funding, republicans were in a rage about that. The teachers lost their jobs and teaching licenses.

    Thanks for reading

    -- Posted by Raker on Sun, Jan 2, 2022, at 5:45 PM
  • You have no idea the Judges “before & after office hours” time that is committed to working on cases. Me neither; but I’m fairly confident there is barely a “boss” around that hasn’t experienced after hours work and then taken a few hours here and there to offset. Maybe the 10:30 into the courthouse (you refer to) was after attending a meeting, or maybe there was nothing on the docket early. We just don’t know, but accusations can be worthless information.

    Look at you Raker, taking the extra time to research this article, in depth. Good for you sharing links for others to find additional information ON A SUNDAY. Now don’t go in tomorrow until 10:30….

    -- Posted by kbmom on Sun, Jan 2, 2022, at 8:40 PM
  • @Kbmom What is it exactly you need to verify that you can't find? Let me know and I'll post a link to it, or tell you where to find it. Most everything is either on IN.gov or an Indystar or other article, just use your search engine. The data is from the annual judicial service reports, DCS monthly assessment decision reports, trial court quarterly case statistics reports, and the DHHS annual child maltreatment reports. Btw I realize it's Sunday, but there's no time limit!

    You're right that's definitely possible he could have been in a meeting or something on a Monday morning. That's why it was only one sentence of what I wrote. I didn't even mention about being told that he doesn't like to do much on Friday's either, because it was secondhand. I mean, it looked to me like he just got there, but either way it's a small detail.

    In regard to what you said about being the boss, I disagree in this case because the boss's business is only open seven hours a day, five days a week, and it's a very important government business handling court cases. It's hard to see much of anything getting done when the boss isn't there. I think there's alot going on in a court besides hearings, like reviewing cases and writing orders. Then the boss claims he's so busy that he's doing the work of one and a half people, and needs more help. I mean I work 50-60 hrs a week, and I understand working a long day and then coming in later the next, but...

    -- Posted by Raker on Sun, Jan 2, 2022, at 10:40 PM
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