Office of Public Defense grants for cities less than 200,000 for drug possession cases

The Washington Office of Public Defense (OPD) received an appropriation in the 2023 session to provide local governments with grants for public defense costs related to drug possession cases. OPD did a grant application cycle and awarded funds to all that applied, and they still have funds remaining that they would like to award to local governments.

To be eligible, a city only needs to be less than 200,000 in population (based on OFM current estimates) and have public defense expenses related to drug possession cases. OPD is accepting applications on a rolling basis and is allowing award recipients to backdate their expenses back to August 15, 2023.

The grant funds are on a reimbursement basis and can be used for:

• Public defender expenses, whether contract public defenders or staff attorneys
• Public defender support staff expenses
• Investigator expenses
• Expert witness expenses

Importantly, the funds can be used to pay for an entire case expense where one of the charges was drug possession. It does not have to be solely for the drug possession charge or for cases in which only drug possession was charged.

For more information, visit OPD’s grant website and review the application.

Note: This is different than the RCW 10.101 County and City Public Defense Improvement Funds grants that most cities and counties are familiar with. This is an entirely new grant.

Questions? Contact Grace O'Connor at grace.oconnor@opd.wa.gov and Nicole Dodge at nicole.dodge@opd.wa.gov.