BUDGET CONFERENCE: HOUSE (BUT NOT SENATE) OFFERS ASST. PUBLIC DEFENDER, STATE ATTORNEY PAY BUMPS, BUT DISPARITY COULD POSE PROBLEMS

Update May 14, 2026 4:55 p.m.

The House has issued its second offer as part of its criminal justice funding silo, holding firm in its original position on Assistant State Attorney and Assistant Public Defender funding for new positions, with State Attorney offices slated for 40 full-time-equivalent positions and $4.4 million in funding and Public Defender offices at just eight full-time-equivalent positions and $1.8 million in funding.

Update May 14, 2026 9:00 a.m.

The Senate in its first budget offer from the Senate Appropriations Committee on Criminal and Civil Justice is continuing to hold its position on funding for new full-time-equivalent (FTE) positions within State Attorney and Public Defender offices, with no funds allocated to either group of legal professionals. The House has proposed 40 FTE positions and about $4.4 million in funding for State Attorney offices, but just eight FTE positions and a little less than $1.8 million for Public Defender offices.

Both the House and Senate have included $12,000 for enhanced salary incentive payments for state attorneys, but neither have included similar funding for public defenders.

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Original report from May 13, 2026

As the House did during the Regular Session earlier this year, the lower chamber in its first budget offer of the Special Session is proposing pay increases for Assistant Public Defenders and Assistant State Attorneys.

Both groups of legal professionals would welcome a pay increase. It’s no secret both State Attorney and Public Defender Offices have long struggled with recruitment and retention because of notoriously low pay for the lawyers who staff the offices. For example, the starting pay for a public defender in Miami is $72,000. Assistant State Attorneys in the 20th Judicial Circuit in Southwest Florida, a less populous area, start at $80,000.

The Florida Bar noted last year, citing Florida Public Defender Association President Stacy Scott, that new Assistant Public Defenders were being offered as little as $64,000 a year, depending on where they were working in the state.

The problem is, the House is proposing bigger raises for Assistant State Attorneys than for Assistant Public Defenders, who are already paid a slightly lower rate than their prosecutorial colleagues. The House proposed in its initial budget and subsequent offer on Tuesday a $10,000 pay bump for state prosecutors, and just $3,500 for public defense attorneys.

Assistant State Attorneys are tasked with prosecuting suspects, while Public Defenders are responsible for providing defense for those deemed indigent; that is, they cannot afford a private attorney.

While any raise would be welcome to either group of legal professionals, the disparity is, by some accounts, a bigger problem than no raise at all.

In the most recent House offer related to the Justice Budget Subcommittee, the House would fund eight full-time-equivalent positions, from a nearly $1.8 million line item for staffing adjustments for workload and increased judgeships for Public Defender Offices. Meanwhile, the same offer includes funding for 40 full-time-equivalent positions within State Attorney Offices, with about $4.4 million in funding.

In speaking to legal professionals within the Public Defender ecosystem, Florida Politics has learned that the eight positions and $1.8 million to cover meager pay increases is just a fraction of what Public Defenders sought. They asked for 38 positions and $7.3 million in funding.

But what’s more, Public Defenders seek parity in both pay and staffing. To put it simply, for every new judge added to a circuit court, there should be another Assistant State Attorney added and another Assistant Public Defender.

As the House offer currently sits, even if that ratio were bumped to 2:1, the budget wouldn’t cover enough new Public Defender positions to keep pace with State Attorney Offices.

That may not seem like a huge problem for the legally uninitiated, but it’s a big deal because it creates a competition imbalance. If newly minted lawyers in Florida can make more as an Assistant State Attorney than as an Assistant Public Defender, many will choose the bigger paycheck — especially if they have hefty student debt to pay down.

There’s also the issue of retention. If existing Assistant Public Defenders can earn more across the hall as a prosecutor, what’s to keep them in their current roles?

A justice system is only as good as its ability to represent all sides. Prosecution cannot move forward if there isn’t a Public Defender to provide constitutionally mandated defense to the accused.

That not only creates a potential justice system backlog, it also risks saddling those facing criminal charges with the potential to be represented by a Public Defender spread so thin across a mountain of cases that they don’t provide adequate representation. One can imagine the appellate boondoggle that could ultimately spur.

What’s more, the disparity between prosecutor and public defense attorney is not new.

Last year, Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed more than $3.1 million that had been included in the current fiscal year budget earmarked for pay increases. Increases for state prosecutors were left intact.

Vera, an organization that advocates for a fair criminal justice system, found in an analysis this year that while every state in the nation now provides at least some funding for indigent defense, that only happened two years ago. And parity is still a long way off when compared to public prosecutors.

The Vera analysis cited a 2019 report from Brennan Center for Justice advocating for parity between Public Defenders and prosecutors and noted that the defense side has been underfunded for decades.

Speaking to the Florida Bar last year, Scott said the turnover rate among Public Defenders is about 20%, largely fueled by a pay parity gap between Assistant Public Defenders and Assistant State Attorneys that has fallen below 50% in some circuits.

It’s worth noting that, because the Senate has so far not included any funding for new positions in either State Attorney or Public Defender Offices, the House offer is still preliminary, subject to change and may be goading Senators into funding positions in its budget.

But for now, if the Legislature provides pay raises at all, it’s possible it will only further increase the pay gap between those who defend the accused and those who prosecute them.