Title
Office of the Alternate Public Defender recommending the Board approve and authorize the Chair to sign Amendment I to Agreement 5951 and Amendment I to Agreement 5953 with attorneys Lori G. London and Kimberly G. Hunt for the provision of conflict defense services for the East Slope of El Dorado County for the period from October 1, 2022 through September 30, 2023 with an increase of $84,000 for each agreement, making the revised not-to-exceed amount $210,000 each.
FUNDING: General Fund.
Body
DISCUSSION / BACKGROUND
In March 2021, the Board approved the Final Passage of Ordinance 5141 establishing the Office of the Alternate Public Defender. Per the item, the County will continue to contract for conflict defense services in the Tahoe Basin through the end of Fiscal Year 2022-23. The Alternate Public Defender will manage the contracted indigent defense services for the Tahoe Basin. During that time, the Alternate Public Defender will analyze and assess the service needs in the Tahoe Basin and determine how to best meet those needs.
On September 28, 2021, the Board approved and authorized the Chair to execute agreements 5951 and 5953 with attorneys Lori G. London and Kimberly G. Hunt for the provision of conflict defense services for the East Slope of El Dorado County for the period from October 1, 2021 through September 30, 2022 in the amount of $126,000 each, with the option to extend for the period from October 1, 2022 through September 30, 2023. The Board is asked to exercise the option to extend in order to provide more time to complete the analysis of service provision in the basin. Much of the focus of the Alternate Public Defender's Office during this past year has been to recruit staff for the West Slope, which took longer than expected due to the tight labor market and shortage of qualified attorneys. In addition, the Courts have changed case management systems, making it difficult to extract useful data to be used in the analysis.
ALTER...
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