County pays $170K in attorney fees to close out fiscal year

​YORK – The York County Commissioners paid out $170,938 in attorney fees this past week, as they closed out the county court public defense bills (court appointed attorney fees) for the fiscal year.

​A group of bills from a variety of law firms had been held until the budget could be reopened and budget authority could be moved around (to take money from other departments to cover the shortfall in the county court fund caused by increased indigent defense).
The county has seen a major uptick in the cost of public defense for indigent defendants this past year. More and more outside attorneys have been assigned to cases as the public defender’s office has not been able to take them all due to caseload and conflicts.
A few weeks ago, York County Commissioner Randy Obermier mentioned during a board meeting how the public defender’s office had even stopped taking cases altogether a couple of months earlier.
This past week, however, Obermier said the county public defender’s office has started taking cases again, “so that will certainly help with these outside attorney’s fees, that will help keep these down for now. I guess it might help.”
The county is required by law to pay the costs of legal counsel for defendants who cannot afford it.
It was also this past week, as the commissioners paid bills for the first pay/claims period in the 2026-27 fiscal year, how the expenses were higher than normal. Another big expenditure was before them – the payment to NIRMA, the county’s property and casualty insurance carrier, in the amount of $231,611.