"Slippage"

I'm even more grateful that I was able to find a p.d. job on Puget Sound in light of this:

King County (Metro Seattle) whacks the public-defenders budget by $1 million

"...(T)he Metropolitan King County Council approved ...increases for both the prosecuting attorney's office and the sheriff's department. But it also included almost $1 million in cuts from the county's public-defense system..."

"The 2005 budget situation is so bad that Northwest Defenders, one of four nonprofit public-defense firms that are under contract to the county, will be run at a deficit and might have to close its doors."

"We're the least favored in human services," says Eileen Farley, director of the Northwest Defenders Association... "I don't have anyone left to lay off."