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To accommodate a budget shortfall of $3.5 million, the State Office of the Public Defender will no longer be contracting cases with local attorneys.

Instead, the office will hire a total of 62 attorneys in offices across the state to handle cases previously assigned to outside counsel, OPD Chief Administrator Scott Cruse said Monday.

This plan was projected to save the office $2.2 million in fiscal year 2017, according to the OPD's mitigation plan.

On Wednesday, Interim Director of the Billings' office Doug Day said the office would no longer contract out cases to local lawyers.

Since the state office was created in 2006, the state public defender office has contracted out cases that could not be handled by the local offices, whether because of too many cases or conflicts within the office. On average, OPD paid these attorneys about $62 an hour for their work, Day said.

Now, instead of contracting cases, the public defender office will be employing attorneys part time to handle the cases. These attorneys will be eligible to the same state benefits as a full-time employee, but will be paid between $37 and $48 hourly, Cruse said.