Federal public defender won't cut staff with sequester

The federal public defender's office in Minnesota is taking another big budget cut, but it's not as bad as first thought.

The automatic, across-the-board federal spending cuts known as sequestration have led to furloughs and layoffs at public defender's offices nationwide.

But Katherian Roe, the chief federal public defender in Minnesota, said court administrators were able to reduce cuts by paying less to private lawyers.

"It's a 10 percent reduction for our personnel costs instead of 23 percent," Roe said. "We will not be terminating anyone, we'll have to go on furlough days.

"It was a huge relief as far as not having to think about actually cutting the staff in half, because the reality is that this office just would not be able to function with half of the people."

Roe said open positions in her office will remain unfilled.