CROWN POINT | Even some of the poorest criminal defendants must do their part to reduce the cost of Lake County government to local taxpayers.

Lake County Public Defender David Schneider said Monday his staff has recovered $30,000 this year from hundreds they defended in criminal court at public expense. "Our goal this year is $70,000."

That is only a fraction of the $2.3 million the Public Defender's office will spend this year to employ a staff of 52 attorneys, paralegals, investigators and secretaries who organize the defense of criminal defendants who cannot afford private trial lawyers.

But Schneider said, "Although we have done this for years, we know belts are going have to be tightened. That is why we leaning a little harder on the attorneys to prepare fee affidavits for any of our clients who are out on cash bonds," Schneider said.

State law requires criminal court judges to appoint public defenders for indigent persons, even if they can afford to deposit enough money at the clerk's office for a bond to ensure they will return for each of their court hearings after they are released from the county jail prior to trial.

State law permits the public defender to ask a judge to subtract their expenses from a defendant's cash bond before it is returned to the defendant after the case is resolved.

The Lake County Council is preparing in the coming weeks to begin setting lower spending targets for all county government agencies, including the courts and public safety agencies, which make up the lion's share of the government budget.

"Outside of the cost of death penalty (cases), we have lived within our means," Schneider said. Death penalty cases, because of the intense and time-consuming trial preparation cost hundreds of thousands of extra dollars.

Schneider said local taxpayers are only tapped for 60 percent of his office's budget. The rest comes from the state treasury. However, the state mandates the public defender maintain minimum staffing levels, which will complicate any efforts to cut his budget by layoffs.

"We have to have a set number of employees for the caseload and we don't control the number of those cases. Our attorneys are pretty much at their full caseload limit.

Schneider said, "It is to the office's benefit to get more fees collected if possible. But a lot of times if there are other fees to be taken out of bond or restitution, then we are going to be at the bottom of the list."