Essex County remains in a wait-and-see mode on how it plans to tackle the continually escalating costs of the county’s assigned counsel program, as input from the Essex County Bar Association has yet to come.

As the county awaits the ECBA’s input, county Attorney Dan Manning has presented the Essex County Board of Supervisors with several different options about how to cut costs while also meeting new state mandates.

The ideas range from contracting with attorneys outside of Essex County to having the county’s Public Defender’s Office take over Family Court assigned counsel, to regionalizing assigned counsel with neighboring Clinton and Franklin counties.

“It’s not an easy nut to crack, so to speak,” said Randy Preston, chairman of the Essex County Board of Supervisors.

“Ways to cut back, maybe they are not really drastic,” Preston added, “but at least (there’s) a little savings involved. And the last I knew, we were waiting to hear from the bar association for their thoughts and comments, because we would very much want for them to be involved.”

In addition to the already escalating costs, the county is also tasked with meeting new state mandates that some county officials say will only drive costs up further.

The first mandate is specific to the terms of the Hurrell-Harring Act, which mandates that indigent defendants have quality counsel at arraignment. The state has tasked the county with implementing the plan by April 1, 2023.

Lake Placid-based defense attorney Brian Barrett sees it as a positive change here in the rural North Country, where it is often difficult to provide representation in the furthest reaches of Essex County at odd hours.

“If a criminal defendant is arraigned in the middle of the night, they should absolutely have counsel with them to avail them of all of their rights and privileges under the law,” he said.

The second mandate is specific to revised income figures that will enable anyone at or below 250-percent of the federal poverty guidelines to be eligible for assigned counsel. This year for a household of a single person, that would include anyone making up to $30,015 annually.

The third mandate is the controversial “Raise the Age” directive signed into law by Gov. Andrew Cuomo earlier this month, which will result in 16- and 17-year-old defendants having their cases heard as juveniles in family court. The legislation will result in some counties having to create or adjust their youth courts to handle felony-level cases, among other new costs.

With all of these factors on the horizon, Manning has drafted a 22-page “Indigent Legal Defense — Assigned Counsel 2017” overview document for the county. The document includes a seven-page summary outlining the county’s current situation, future options and Manning’s recommendations.

Manning recommends asking the ECBA to agree to what he termed a “stopgap” solution to the increasing costs of assigned counsel that would save Essex County approximately $100,000. He wrote that the major components are a reduction in the amount paid to attorneys for time traveling to appearances, from $75 to $40, and the removal of mileage.

Barrett said that is unfair to attorneys willing to provide defense.

“Essex County is so huge you have to drive all over the place, and those are our expenses and things that we incur,” he said. “We didn’t go through seven years of post-secondary education to be paid $40 an hour. Our law school loans and student loans and everything else add up, and those have to be paid and, that’s part of our hourly fee.”

As part of this solution, Manning also recommends a provision that mandates an attorney from outside Essex County have an office in Essex County to participate in the county’s assigned counsel plan.

“Alternatively, we could go the contract route with three or four outside attorneys,” Manning wrote.

He added that the public defender option would “definitely” create an extra layer of bureaucracy, including legacy costs such as pensions.

Manning went on to write that, to his knowledge, the county has only 13 attorneys interested in assigned counsel, a potential problem.

He recommends initiating conversation about shared assigned counsel with Clinton and Franklin counties, “which would save on (an) Assigned Counsel Administrator,” Manning writes, “as it would be paid by more than one county and would most likely save on travel when there are conflicts.”

Speaking Friday, Preston — who is also Wilmington’s town supervisor — said the problem boils down to there not being enough lawyers to cover the cases in Essex County.

“A lot of times you will have cases where the husband and wife are separated, and the husband and wife can get a court-appointed lawyer, and the children get a court-appointed lawyer,” Preston said. “So there you have three attorneys for one case, and from what I understand, that happens quite frequently.”

Preston added that he doesn’t think the sharing of indigent services between the counties “is even remotely realistic,” though he clarified and said the consolidation of counsel and arraignment between counties has been discussed as a possibility going forward.

“There were a lot of things talked about — video, and this and that,” Preston said. “I mean, it’s not mandated yet anyways. But that came up. I don’t know where shared services (came up) because there is no discussion on shared services, quite frankly.”

North Elba town Supervisor Roby Politi said Friday that sharing counsel and arraignment services between the counties might make sense.

“That was the basic discussion,” he said, “trying to find — can we group up with somebody to share costs.

“I don’t know that the taxpayers can afford it in counties like Essex, Franklin, Hamilton and so forth — covering all those costs,” he added.

“The trouble is,” Politi continued, “even in Essex County, you’ve got 18 towns, and they are so far apart. And I can’t imagine that there are that many attorneys in Newcomb and Minerva and those places, so I would assume they’d come from the Glens Falls area. Nothing’s easy.”

Politi said he believes the state should participate in these costs. Gov. Andrew Cuomo in December vetoed a bill that would have had the state pick up the cost of lawyers for defendants who can’t afford them. It came six months after the measure cleared the state Legislature with bipartisan support.

“Counties can’t continue to pay for everything,” Politi said. “It’s constant.”

North Elba town Justice Dean Dietrich said the primary problem he sees is the lack of willing attorneys available to represent, especially with the new mandate permitting those making up to 250 percent of the poverty line to be eligible for the public defender.

He added that the problem is similar in Franklin County, where he said he spoke to an attorney who is “running himself ragged” to represent a myriad of cases across the county.

“The pool of lawyers willing to do it in Franklin County is pretty minimal, from my understanding, anyway,” Dietrich said. “And I don’t know what the pool would be in Essex County.

“So what you are talking about now is having public defenders available to go to Lake Placid at 2 in the morning, Schroon at 2 in the morning, Elizabethtown, wilmington — be everywhere all the time,” Dietrich added. “And they have difficulty doing it. There just isn’t enough manpower.”

Barrett disagreed, saying he thinks there are enough lawyers in the county to handle all of the indigent defense work.

“Going outside of the county, hiring other attorneys, that just causes other attorneys to drive farther and incur more costs and time,” Barrett said. “So I think that’s a terrible idea.”

Dietrich said an expanded pool would make things easier, though he thinks different ideas will be kicked around in the ensuing weeks and months.

“Everything might end up in Elizabethtown,” he said. “(That) requires holding cells. The sheriff’s got to be on board — extra personnel, a lot of expenses.

“In terms of expanding the number of public defenders available,” Dietrich continued, “it probably makes some sense to do that. But the real issue is getting the public defenders and the defendant in front of a judge — that, to me, and the cost.

“It doesn’t change the fact that there is a new stage that the counties can cooperate and share expenses and share personnel. It certainly makes sense.”