Balancing the Scales: Guiding Your Team through Budget Cuts, Funding Challenges, and Retention Crises
A robust conversation around navigating budgets, cuts and layoffs, creative ideas for funding, and retention efforts during this time where Chiefs are called to lead in a space of uncertainty and instability.
Omotayo Alli
Executive Director
Georgia Public Defender Council
Omotayo B. Alli serves as Executive Director of the Georgia Public Defender Council (GPDC), where she leads the agencyâs statewide mission to provide high-quality legal representation to indigent clients. Appointed by Governor Brian P. Kemp in March 2020, Director Alli brings decades of public-defense experience and a steadfast commitment to fairness, equity, and constitutional rights.
Under her leadership, GPDC has strengthened frontline defense services, modernized operations, and expanded holistic support for clients and communities. She oversees 60 offices across Georgia, ensuring that every client receives skilled representation and access to resources addressing the root causes of court involvement. During the COVID-19 pandemic, her leadership ensured that no GPDC staff member was furloughed while positioning the agency for long-term success.
In 2022, Director Alli achieved historic pay equity between public defenders and district attorneys, a first for Georgia. She increased funding for attorney salaries, raised contract rates, created a traveling-attorney team for underserved areas, launched a Gang and RICO Unit, and established a statewide Social Services Division to support rehabilitation and reentry. She also introduced a leadership program for defenders, modernized case management, and expanded community outreach.
Director Alli founded the Ladders Program and Leadership Education Advancement Program (LEAP) to support youth and young adults through GED training, vocational development, and case management. Ladders boasts a 91 percent graduation rate and only 2 percent recidivism among graduates.
Before joining GPDC, she served as Chief Administrative Officer for the Fulton County Juvenile Court and as the inaugural Director of Fulton County Child Attorneys.
The first female and first African-heritage Executive Director of GPDC, Mrs. Alli holds degrees from Kent State University, Jacksonville State University, and Georgia State University. Her honors include the John Robert Lewis Lifetime Achievement Award (2024), recognizing her enduring dedication to justice, equality, and education.