Public defenders in Hawaiʻi were granted a 20% pay increase last summer, but many attorneys say their bank accounts have yet to catch up. Repeated paycheck shortfalls have left lawyers owed retroactive pay while the state untangles staffing and payroll problems behind the scenes.
Lawmakers set aside roughly $1.65 million to fund the raises, according to the Hawaiʻi Senate Majority budget summary. The money was part of a broader push to boost chronically low salaries in government legal offices and keep experienced attorneys from walking out the door.
The Department of Budget and Finance manages payroll for the Office of the Public Defender and is in charge of entering the new salary numbers and releasing retroactive pay. Acting Director Seth S. Colby is listed on the department website as the agency lead responsible for those duties.
Raises Applied, Checks Lag
The 20% raise officially took effect on July 1, but implementation has been anything but smooth. Reporting shows that paychecks have been short for about a dozen pay periods, leaving many attorneys owed thousands of dollars in back pay while the system catches up.
According to the reporting, entry-level deputy public defenders should now be earning about $91,140. A miscalculation, along with a required step for governor authorization, left roughly $200,000 unreleased, which slowed efforts to correct the shortfalls. "These raises were not a luxury," Public Defender Jon Ikenaga wrote in an email quoted in the reporting, telling staff he expects retroactive payments to be issued once payroll entries are fully processed. Civil Beat
Neighbor-island Offices Felt the Pinch
The delay in paying out the raises has hit neighbor-island offices especially hard. Earlier reporting found that the Kailua Kona public defender office temporarily stopped accepting DUI cases and some felonies as vacancies mounted. "We cannot overly burden our attorneys," Deputy Public Defender Hayley Cheng told reporters, describing the caseload and the strain on the staff who remained. Civil Beat
What Comes Next
Ikenaga has told staff he expects the higher salaries to start appearing in paychecks in February, though he has warned there is no firm timeline and some employees may see their adjustments sooner than others. Lawmakers and defenders alike say the real test now is whether the Department of Budget and Finance follows through with timely payroll entries and retroactive checks, so public defender offices can finally stabilize, recruit, and retain the attorneys they need for the long haul.
