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HomeMy WebLinkAbout02-21-2000 Meeting I STUDYSUBCONlliflTTEE LAW DEPARTMENT COMMITTEE ROOM - February 21,2000 4:00 P.M. PRESENT: B. Young, Mayor, W. Mays, Mayor Pro Tern, L. Beard, Chairman, S. Shepard, M. Williams members, J. Wall, Attorney, L. Bonner, Clerk of Commission. ALSO PRESENT: A. Cheek, Commissioner, S. Cooper, Augusta Chronicle, T. Cox, Augusta Focus. Overview of Report Augusta Legal Service Subcommittee's prepared September 22, 1998. Mr. Williams: I think we would save a substantial amount of money having our legal services in-house. Would have to make some modifications but the money we spent in 1999 tells me that we could do this for a lot less than we are doing now. I feel that the amount of money we're paying out does not seem fair to our taxpayers. We need to look at an in-house attorney on a salary that works for the government. I have talked to several different people from other counties who have an in-house attorney trying to compare and find out what they're paying and the services that they receive. We would still have to go outside for some services, but we would still save by having an in-house attorney. I think we need to govern the amount of money that is spent. II . . Mr. Beard: I would think the main thing we need to determine with this Committee is what direction we want to go in, how do we want to structure this committee as far as looking into this before we get to the decision of which one we will have. I Mr. Shepard: I haven't reviewed this report that was done in 1998. There has been a lot of work done in this area already by the past Committee. They talked about the need for independence of counsel, the quality of counsel the cost effectiveness. They had a suggestion of employing maybe one full time assistant. I think we all need to definitely do more than an overview of this report, we all need to become very familiar with their report. My suggestion is that one of the things we could do today is set a schedule that we did our work of discovering other models in other cities, like Athens and Columbus, do that within the next thirty days. It's one thing to criticize the system, I think we should be more than just critics we need to be proactive. We should as a Committee or as individual members propose models that we want to see followed. Either the current model as is, or a modification of the current model or a total in-house model. I think it's encumbered upon our committee to come up with a proposal that we can vote up or down and we as individuals submit proposals. I think after we gather the information, say take about a month try to have our proposals to the committee within sixty-days. Then see if we can't come up with a committee recommendation so that that committee recommendation there is sometime allowed there for some slippage before July 1. Come up with a Committee recommendation in the last part of that or at least maybe a majority position and a minority position to submit to the Commission. It's been my experience that legal advise is historically expensive by most folks standards but poor legal advise is even more expensive than good legal advise because you're correcting problems that you didn't foresee. I think we have been well served by Mr. Wall and his firm in the last two years that I have seen him here. When we debated this in previous years he was unanimously confirmed. I know that the first recommendation of the committee in 1998 was that there was no convincing argument for a change in the present system of procuring legal services for the city of Augusta. I had suggested that to fix things, if the current provider of legal services is not the problem then perhaps the bill should be tended to with more flexibility with the old "shall or may" issue. Ifwe change that one word shall to may, that would completely harmonize the current system with the bill. And I'm still looking into that. But, I'm willing to spend some time again going through this looking at what other cities have done. I know I've had the comment made to me and can't verify it today that Athens has really not saved any money. But, I would suggest that timetable mainly today, Lee and lets not just say what's wrong with the current system, let's suggest how we fix it. Mr. Wall: I would hope that you all would look at the cost. Commissioner Williams commented that we were over the budget by $600,000. I would hope that you would look at those because I have tried to provide some cost information. We were not over budget within what the budget was designed to do. We did have the sludge litigation that involved some other expenses but that was not included as part of the budget. I think. there has been some misinformation given out as far as what the attorneys fees were, what the legal expenses were versus the other expenses that were involved in that sludge litigation. Mr. Williams: What I'm basing this on is I've talked to at least three other counties, Athens, Warren Robbins, Macon and they are paying their attorney between $80,000 and $90,000 a year. They do have some work that is subbed out but the work that they have subbed out, and I don't have any documentation to that, only the conversation that we had, did not come close to what we spent. I just think that we need to find a way to come within the law. I understand what Mr. Shepard said about changing from "shall to may". I'm not for changing the law but I think we have not proceeded with what the law has set forth for us to do. We need to go back to that first of all and try to acquire an in-house attorney that we could pay $80,000 to $90,000 a year, it maybe even more. But from what we spent last year I think we need to find an alternative to try to go with what we were duly sworn to do and that's uphold the law. We are holding everybody else to the law and as Commissioners as a governing body we need to uphold the law as well. Mr. Cheek: Will there be an ordinance proposed to us to change "shall to may"? Mr. Wall: It's my understanding that the motion included that. Mr. Shepard: "Shall to may" would give this Committee the option of doing an in-house or leaving this present situation intact or doing something that's a hybrid of the two. I I I I Mr. Cheek: I would like to see us have somebody in-house that acts as more as an administrator handling day-to-day functions themselves, hiring specialist for specialty areas such as the sludge suit or EOC concerns. .from what I understand in talking to several other areas, we should also look at Charlotte and other cities that are like Augusta and have grown and prospered to see the model they used to make the transition from the current form that we have to a legal department which they do now have. Mr. Beard: I think it's very important today that we stick to the structure of what we're going to do and not make a determination today on whether we're going to have in- house, out-house. But I think that when we come back, whatever we come up with we're going to have to have strong documentation for whatever we come up with. I think the main thing that the body expects us to do is to come up with a recommendation, whether we're going to maintain the system as it is or go to an in-house source that we can use. I think we need to follow along those two points and decide which way how to best come to that, whether viewing other cities or do whatever we do. But we need to combine our thoughts and patterns on that and the next meeting what kind of agenda we will have and what we will need to bring forth at the next meeting. I think it will take some time to make that determination and we should make it on concrete evidence that we can produce and show. I Mr. Shepard: I suggested that at the next meeting if we could have presentations from Charlotte for example Athens, ifthey want to send it here, they don't have to come in person. If these are models that we are going to consider we need to put them on the table. I'll put that in the form of a motion, Mr. Chairman, that we set another meeting for thirty days away and that the committee members present their municipal models in documentary form or have some experts share with us. Mr. Beard: Does anyone else have any suggestions, we've named two, Charlotte, Athens, Columbus. Mr. Mayor: I think we have to look at this a couple of different ways. Because the legal problems of each community are different so if we were to just take another city and try to compare dollars to dollars, you're not looking at the same service you get for the dollars. We might want to include looking at some cities that pay comparable annual legal fees as we do and see what kind of services they get for the dollars they spend. Also, I think we ought to look at some cities that have similar population to see how much they're spending. And we ought to compare what kind of services these cities get for the money they pay. I would be curious ifit would be possible ifMr. Wall could take a moment and explain to us what we're getting for the money we're paying now. I Mr. Wall: You are currently paying on a retainer basis $1,500 per month. However, that's not a true retainer. A retainer is typically thought of in terms of that money is paid to set aside an attorney from taking work against that client or to be on the clock. What we actually do is bill on an hourly rate. That $1,500 is paid as a retainer and is a separate budget item, but it is backed out against the time. So that the only thing we're actually paid for is the time that is spent. Now, what you get for the hourly rate, I represent the Commission. Take the calls from department heads and others. Take calls from Commissioners and attend the meetings. We deal with personnel issues. We deal I with contracts that come through the various departments and all the things that are . involved with that. I take calls that mayoe referred to me by either a Commissioner or a department head concerning complaints. Deal with Risk Management insofar as claims that come up or either being discussed as far as what potential liability is concerned as well as defending claims once they are there. In addition to that serve as the attorney for some of the elected officials, the Tax Commissioner and the Sheriffs Department. Handle any litigation that may arise out of the jail. Take care of the contracts, the other things, of course most of those come to you through the Sheriff s Department but deal with the forfeitures and the other things that happen within the Sheriffs Department. Also, the Tax Commissioners Office and the Clerk of Superior Court. If the Superior Court Judges get involved in litigation they are represented by the State but we coordinate with them. RCCI we represent them. Habeas corpus petitions that are filed by inmates against either the Sheriff or others, we defend those. We perform services for the Board of Elections as a separate entity as well as the Human Relations Commission, Aviation Commissions and Board of Tax Assessors. Mr. Mayor: When you represent the Sheriffs Department or the Tax Board are those charges back charged to those departments or is that a liability shown against us as a Commission legal expense? Mr. Wall: It's included in the budget as a Commission legal expense. I think that I there is a process now. One of the recommendations from the Buck Study was for that we get a time keeping system that would allocate by department so we have started keeping our time by department. Therefore, you can look at the time slips basically since July 99 and you have a charge against the various departments. My understanding is that there is now some effort on the part of Finance to allocate the cost back. Right after Randy came there was a cost allocation study. Basically they went through and said so much of the administrative expenses which would be x-amount of dollars out of the legal services are attributable to that. So, I'm not sure I can answer that any more than I know the time is being kept that way. I still think it's done on a cost allocation basis but this is background information. So if in some future time they look at that cost allocation they can see how close it actually it reflects. Mr. Mayor: So what we're saying is that if we look in our budget and say we spent $600,000 last year that would include representing these other constitutional officers and the boards and authorities and may not necessarily reflect the amount of time and money that was spent representing the Commission and other departments under our authority. So that figure may be much less. Mr. Wall: Under state law you are charged with the responsibility of providing legal services to those. Mr. Williams: You mentioned the retainer fee that we draw back from, what is the I hourly rate that we pay your firm as a governing body? I Mr. Wall: I bill an $100 per hour as do the other partners, which include Harry Revelle, Jim Ellison and Thomas Burnside. At this point Amanda Pogless and Lee Little are billed at $85 per hour and the paralegal is billed at $45 per hour. Mr. Williams: There are also some outside firms that we were using for the sludge litigation what is their hourly rate? Mr. Wall: It varies depending upon the attorney it could be as high as $275. Mr. Williams: When you deal with a piece of property that is sold by this governing body, do you get a percentage of that? Mr. Wall: No not a percentage. That is one clarification I need to make. On title searches and things of that nature we are charging a set fee as opposed to an hourly rate. That is $150. So those we are billing on a per title basis rather than on a time and charge basis. Mr. Cheek: Can you give us a spread sheet on the cost from your office for a couple of months in 1999 to show how costing goes for the airport authority and the whole the menu of charges levied against the county from your firm? Mr. Wall: Sure. I After further discussion, Mr. Mays: While we're checking with these other cities on one form of law versus another form of law lets also look at the population of each, the breakdown of each, who works within the different departments and who works within the firms. Whether or not you have any minority representation in some of those that have hired a firm or lawyer that's there. Or whether you have some representation that's there in some of the departments. Ifwe're going to talk about the change we're going to talk about it all. Mr. Beard: This was the objective of the Committee to discuss everything. The intent of my motion was to lets deal with this and in July make a recommendation whether they accept it or not. But lets hope we have the acceptance of the whole body when we come back with this. It's open for discussion and I do agree that we need to meet back here in thirty days. Whatever we come up with in that time frame we need to put it on the table for discussion. The two cities that we have up for discussion are Athens and Charlotte. Mr. Shepard: If we have any additional cities I would say turn those in by Friday to the Clerk. I made a motion a while back, I don't know if you want to act on it? I Mr. Williams: Second. Mr. Mays: I hope we can expand on what the Mayor was talking about in reference to both sides of this particular situation those that are doing as we currently do and those that do in-house. But to expand that even further to look at a breakdown in terms of the diverse makeup of those that are represented by individually chosen firms or attorneys versus those that have departments in those particular cities. Let's not limit it to these two cities, let's look out there and see what's out there. I Mr. Beard: I think the motion can be inclusive that if there are any additional cities presented during this time. Mr. Shepard: I'll restate my motion to include but not limited to those two cities. Those are the two cities we asked for so lets get that information for sure if any Committee members want information on cities and their organization let them bring that information as well. Motion carried unanimously. Mr. Beard: I would like to see us as we get into this by the next meeting and its been stated over and over, we really need to at some point find out in which direction we're going before we spend our whole time in one direction. I would just advise you to think. about, especially before the next meeting, to think. about which one we want. I think that we're going to have to make a decision, whether we're going to use an in- house firm or continue as is. Ifwe continue the way we're going we'll have to make I some home rule changes. I think we need to have some thoughts in mind. Our next meeting will be March 20 at 4p.m. With no further business to be discussed, the meeting was adjourned. Lena J. Bonner Clerk of Commission Ibb I