County Base Information

Under Iowa Code section 232.141, subsections (2) and (3), counties are responsible for paying a portion of the juvenile court expenses incurred by an attorney appointed to serve as counsel to any party or to serve as a guardian ad litem for any child.   These costs may include reasonable compensation for the attorney or guardian ad litem as well as the expenses for foreign language interpreters, costs of depositions and transcripts, fees and mileage of witnesses, and the expenses of officers serving notices and subpoenas incurred by the court-appointed attorney.

Claims for all such expenses are to be submitted to the Office of the State Public Defender, which initially pays all such juvenile court expenses from the Indigent Defense Fund.  The county is required to reimburse the Indigent Defense Fund for these costs incurred up to the county’s base amount each fiscal year. The county base amount formula is found in Iowa Code section 232.141(3)(a). The Office of the State Public Defender updates the county base amounts annually and requests payment from each county by March 31 each year.

The county base amount owed to the indigent defense fund for each county for Fiscal Year 2023 is set forth below: