Due to the difficulty in finding attorneys who will run for – or accept an appointment as – Seward County’s public defender, Seward County Commissioners have taken the first step toward removing the position from 2024’s voting ballots.
The commissioners on Dec. 19 unanimously voted to change the status of the elected public defender to a contracted official. Commissioner Misty Ahmic will begin recruiting a policy board to outline guidelines and direction for a contracted public defender service with some planning assistance from the county attorney’s office.
Ahmic said a number of Nebraska counties – especially those away from population centers – have shifted to contracting with individual attorneys or a firm of attorneys to provide legal defense for those who need it.
The policy board must include two attorneys and other community members. The board will create a contract to present to the legal community when the current term is expired in 2025 to meet the need for legal assistance for those who cannot afford an attorney.
No one appeared at a scheduled public hearing on the proposal to end the public defender status as an elected position on Dec. 19, which the commissioners opened and closed in a matter of seconds prior to their discussion about next steps.
The last elected public defender here was Nicole Tegtmeier, who ran for the job on the November 2020 ballot, but resigned in March 2021 to move out of the county.
“There’s a lot of counties in this situation,” Commission Chair John Culver noted at the Dec. 19 meeting.
Ahmic said the policy board work to assure there are services available to those who need them, as well as the checks and balances needed.
“It’s very, very important for people to know that if they need legal representation, it is there,” Ahmic said.
However, she said the move to a contract position is not guaranteed.
“We could go all the way through this and create a policy board and still not find anyone,” she said.
As reported in articles and advertisements in the Seward County Independent, Andrew Penry was appointed to the public defender’s post in mid-May 2021 to replace Tegtmeier, and the county advertised for a deputy public defender in June of that year. Penry resigned in July and was re-assigned as deputy public defender, but was named interim public defender within a few months.
Korey Reiman was appointed to the post in January 2022 and resigned in November 2022.
As an elected position, the salary for a four-year term must be set by the board prior to the election cycle, and cannot be changed until the next election cycle. Seward County Clerk Sherry Schweitzer said the board last approved a salary for the four-year elected office that would have begun in January 2020.
The public defender’s position now has a salary of $6,803 per month, or $81,636 per year and a deputy public defender’s position is at $5,102 per month, or $61,224, as listed in the county’s annual report of salaries and wages in August 2022 published legal notices.
The Nebraska State Bar Association’s website articles (nebar.com/page/RPI) report that about a dozen Nebraska counties had no attorneys practicing in them in 2022. A few more have one to three attorneys. It reported Seward County had 23 attorneys or 1.3 per 1,000 people in 2022, compared to 22 in York County, three in Polk County, four in Butler County, 18 in Saline County and six in Fillmore County, which surround Seward County.
Lancaster County’s attorney count was 1,224, or 3.9 per 1,000 people. Counties closer to more densely populated cities generally have the higher numbers of attorneys shown in this data.
The only staff member in the office at this time is the legal secretary/office manager, who commissioners said is retiring early in 2024.
At the Dec. 26 meeting, Commissioner Ken Schmieding who has served as the board’s liaison to the public defender’s office, said after talking with legal counsel and others, he did not want the liability of handling claims and activities for the office after her retirement. Ahmic will serve as the board’s liaison for the public defender’s office going forward.
Ahmic noted the county has also had trouble filling the county surveyor’s role, another position that now requires election.
