Bob CollinsOut in Nobles County (Worthington), the County Commissioners confirmed what public defender Lisa Kloster (“A Day in the Life of a Public Defender”) told me would happen once the Legislature cut the budget for public defenders — it would be another expense the state bailed on by passing the costs lower on the governmental food chain.
The commissioners passed a resolution to continue funding public defenders for cases involving termination of parental rights and child protection cases, the Worthington Daily Globe reports.
“That left us in a lurch — the court systems and the counties. If this isn’t an unfunded mandate, I’ve never seen one,” Judge Jeffrey Flynn of the Fifth Judicial District told the commissioners this week.
