Louisiana's new Public Defender Oversight Board has decided to keep chief public defender pay the same as it was in the last budget cycle. (Getty Images)
Compensation for attorneys who run local public defender offices will remain the same, in spite of a months-long effort from Gov. Jeff Landry’s administration to change their pay scale.
Louisiana’s Public Defender Oversight Board voted 7-2 Wednesday to keep the chief public defenders existing pay structure in place over the objections of Landry’s handpicked state public defender, Rémy Starns.
“I think it is extraordinarily poor public policy, and I think it’s outside of the authority of the oversight board,” Starns told board members of their decision before the vote.
Starns proposed an alternative compensation structure that the board has now declined to adopt in back-to-back meetings. The plan they turned down Wednesday was also rejected at their previous gathering in June .
Starns’ proposal would have reduced the pay of most local lead public defenders — a move that made several board members uncomfortable — while drastically raising compensation for others, according to board members.
Under Starns’ plan, board member Adrejia Boutté estimated 19 district defenders would have seen a pay cut, and the remaining 17 would see a pay increase. The swings in compensation would be dramatic in some cases, she said, with one person losing $52,500 annually from their salary and another gaining $47,800.
“At this particular juncture, I don’t think anybody’s salary should be cut,” said Freddie Pitcher, a former state court judge and Southern University law school chancellor who Landry appointed to the oversight board. He offered the motion to keep the current compensation plan in place.
After Wednesday’s vote, Starns and Christopher Walters, Landry’s deputy executive counsel, left the meeting room abruptly without talking to board members. Starns also declined to talk to a reporter.
The outcome of the vote might have been surprising, particularly after Landry pushed through a new law that gives the governor more control over the public defense system.
At Landry’s urging, the Louisiana Legislature agreed to dissolve a previous public defender board deemed too powerful and reconstitute a new version that must show more deference to the state public defender, who the governor chooses.
Landry, as governor, also selected five of the nine appointees on the new board, though one of his picks has to come from a list of nominees the Public Defenders Association of Louisiana and Louisiana Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers proposes. The Louisiana Senate president, Louisiana House speaker and Louisiana Supreme Court appoint the other four members.
Yet some of the frustrations that spurred lawmakers to give Landry and Starns more control over the public defense haven’t been resolved since the law went into effect earlier this year.
Legislators have repeatedly complained Louisiana spends too much on death penalty defense, for example, but Starns and the new board agreed in June to spend the same amount of money, $6.2 million, on those contracts in this fiscal cycle as they had in the last one.
Starns has also spent the past year trying to reverse raises the previous board gave to chief district public defenders in September 2023.
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Starns became state public defender in 2020 when Gov. John Bel Edwards was still in office and has repeatedly described the current pay scale as an “abomination.”
The old board put the raises in place last year as part of a larger overhaul of the compensation for chief district public defenders. They adopted a new pay scale that adjusted salaries based on seniority, complexity of the district office and previous public defense experience.
Starns wants the chief public defenders’ pay tied more to the amount of money local governments will provide to their offices and the chief public defenders’ willingness to take on cases on top of their managerial responsibilities.
His proposal called for chief public defenders to receive 25% more in compensation if they were willing to handle “a caseload,” which hasn’t been defined. Starns also encouraged the district defenders in smaller offices to open private law practices to supplement their smaller public salaries.
Some chief public defenders already work their own cases or run private law practices on top of their public jobs, but others testified in June that they wouldn’t be comfortable doing so. A few told board members they would quit their jobs if forced to take on more work.
“ I’m concerned about having to replace the public defenders,” said Phyllis Keaty, a former state judge and Landry appointee to the board. “I think the loss of some of the current chiefs that have been there would be a great loss to the state.”
Keaty said she also thought the higher pay for district defenders approved last year was warranted. Many had gone years without a raise.
Board chairman Gerard Caswell, an appointee of House Speaker Phillip DeVillier, disagreed, saying Starns should be allowed to move forward with his alternative plan. Landry and lawmakers had weakened the board earlier this year so it wouldn’t interfere with Starns’ authority, he said.
“I still don’t believe this board should be this deep into the weeds,” Caswell said as one of two board members who voted with Starns. “I perceive this board trying to do what the old board did and that’s not the intent.”
The other board member to side with Landry was gubernatorial appointee and attorney Peter Thomson.
The original version of the public defender board legislation the governor backed gave Starns discretion to set the district defenders’ compensation. But as the bill moved through the legislative process, lawmakers added language to give the board some power over pay.
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