The Office of Public Defense (OPD) is requesting $272.2 million from the general fund–state (GFS) for 2025–27. That would be an increase of $125.6 million (85.6%) over enacted 2023–25 appropriations for the agency. The increase would mostly be new policy items. (See the box at the bottom of this post for budget and fund terminology.)

The substantial request is mainly to provide more state funding to cities and counties for public defense. According to the Washington State Association of Counties, counties spent $198.7 million on public defense in 2022, of which $5.8 million was funded by the state.

Last year, the Washington State Association of Counties and three counties sued the state, arguing that “the State’s ultimate responsibility for providing a constitutionally adequate and uniform system of indigent defense cannot be shifted to counties.” However, a Thurston County Superior Court judge dismissed the case in March for lack of standing: “The counties cannot assert claims premised on the right to counsel as those rights are held by individual indigent criminal defendants, not counties.”

Now, the OPD is requesting $80.9 million in 2025–27 and $80.8 million in 2027–29 to increase public defense improvement grants to cities and counties and create a new innovation grant. Of these amounts, $27.0 million a year would go to counties, $3.0 million a year would go to cities, and $10.0 million a year would be for the new innovation grants.

Separately, the OPD is also requesting $420,000 in 2025–27 to conduct a statewide evaluation of public defense services, which would look at “the most effective methods to support, monitor, and resource local public defense services, and to ensure constitutionally sufficient representation in all jurisdictions.”

Another major new policy request is for $15.8 million in 2025–27 and $16.3 million in 2027–29 for the Simple Possession Advocacy and Representation (SPAR) program. The program reimburses cities and counties for public defense expenses related to drug possession cases. The 2023 bill addressing the Blake decision appropriated $9 million for this purpose in 2023–25, but that was a one-time appropriation and it is not included in the carry-forward level for 2025–27.

(Previous posts on 2025–27 agency requests are here. Our reports on the projected 2025–27 budget shortfall are here and here.)