Public Defender Services Commission seeks FAC approval for $152,500 transfer at Thursday’s meeting. Request for travel, lodging, expert expenses. How much for a Tibetan healing bowl session?

The beleaguered Public Defender Services Commission is seeking approval for a $152,500 transfer at Thursday’s Financial Advisory Committee meeting. The request seeks to move appropriated funds from the personal services account . The request from Chief Public Defender TaShun Bowden-Lewis seeks the approval of the transfer for “training initiatives proposed by the Agency.” (See the full request at the end of this link.)

Among the asks is $55,000 for DefenderLab, a five-day trial skills training program. The adjustment request submitted to the state budget office states, “This year we have been fortunate enough to obtain approval to provide lodging to all attendees, and found a venue with appropriate facilities that had room for the faculty and attendees that week.” Not all the attendees are delighted with having to stay at the facility for five days. Connecticut, as Governor Lamont memorably once told a group of DC government relations professionals, “is a small landlocked state.”

The request includes an additional $30,000 to retain the services of Larry Pozner, a lecturer in cross-examining witnesses. Pozner will appear at the DefenderLab event and two other training events, one of them remote. This service could be provided from within the agency–it boasts plenty of skilled cross-examiners. Members of the private criminal bar have also volunteered their assistance at past training classes.

The request includes “an additional $24,500 to cover any additional unanticipated expenses that arise for the remainder of this year.” This fiscal year ends on June 30th, so there ought not be many surprise education and training programs that are not known when FAC meets Thursday.

Consideration of each request before FAC usually begins with state Senator Cathy Osten asking how many positions are approved and how many filled at the agency. There are other questions to pose Thursday to acquire a fuller understanding of day-to-day issues frontline public defenders face. One is the average caseload of prosecutors in the state’s largest G.A. courts. Another is the backlog of murder cases and the number of public defenders handling them in each judicial district.

FAC members, who appear to enjoy burrowing into the details of state government, will want to know how many retirees with 120-agreements to serve clients are in the division now–and how many were there in each of the past nine months. Committee members will also perform a service if they are able to determine how many contract/conflict public defenders the agency has working for clients and who determines how much they are paid.

How many offices have requested help due to lawyers on pregnancy leave? How many of those requests have been met with temporary replacements?

Members (or one member who will ask) solve a persistent mystery by asking Chief Public Defender TaShun Bowden-Lewis how much public money was spent on renovations, furniture and furnishings for her office. The five members who resigned en masse at the end of March are said to have tried without success to obtain details of those expenditures. Someone at the Office of the Chief Public Defender ought to be able to email those details to FAC members as they pose questions and listen to answers.

The division’s annual meeting is usually held on a weekday. This year it’s at the Holiday Hill resort in Prospect on a Saturday. The invitation includes public defenders, staff, plus ones and children. The day will include reflections by Bowden-Lewis, a sound healing session with Kelvin Young who will “release your suppressed emotions and nourish your soul” with crystals and Tibetan singing bowls….” Releasing suppressed emotions may not be a prudent goal in the divided division. How much is the event costing?

Dr. Maysa Akbar will deliver an hourlong keynote on urban trauma, which ought to touch on the caseloads public defenders in urban courthouses are carrying as Bowden-Lewis slow-walks new hires while lobbying for a public relations office within the division.

FAC is capable of shining a light on the workings of state government and the treatment of state employees when committee members decide to apply their knowledge to agency heads looking for money. Public defenders and thousands of clients will count on them to use the opportunity Thursday presents.

Published April 5, 2023.