Richard Moody is reporting for Columbia-Greene Media Columbia County officials are making plans to redirect $423,000 in state funds to contract with four attorneys for night-time arraignment services to be provided countywide. The attorneys would act as on-call, independent contractors and be paid no more than $35,000 a year. The Columbia County Board of Supervisors Public Safety Committee approved the request as submitted by county Public Defender D.J. Cornelius this week. This program is a state-mandated service, Cornelius said. “The state is phasing this in,” Cornelius said. “I have been talking with the state since February. I told them I would not move forward until it was funded.” The night attorneys will provide arraignment services, on call for judges in all 22 town and village courts in Columbia County. The Greene County Public Defender’s Office started providing support for night-time and weekend arraignments October 1. That office uses attorneys already employed by the public defender for night and weekend shifts to cover the courts in the towns of Coxsackie, Athens, Cairo and Catskill, in addition to the village of Catskill. Greene County received more than $557,000 from the state for use over a three-year period to launch the program. Read the full story at HudsonValley360 [dot] com.