Hollister
– A 2005 plan to rein in the county’s outside legal expenses has
yielded a substantial decrease in costs, although payment to
outside attorneys remains a major expenditure.
Hollister – A 2005 plan to rein in the county’s outside legal expenses has yielded a substantial decrease in costs, although payment to outside attorneys remains a major expenditure.
The supervisors’ plan came at the end of a five-year period when the county paid outside attorneys nearly $3 million, including $1.15 million in fiscal year 2005-06. The following year, according to figures provided by Larry Chapin of the county’s finance department, payments fell by nearly 20 percent.
Chapin said the county won’t know until this summer how much it’s spent since June 2006. However, Supervisor Jaime De La Cruz recently told the Free Lance that he believes that expenses will continue falling. De La Cruz and others attributed the decrease in large part to a new policy – instituted during the county’s budget crunch in May 2005 – requiring all requests for outside legal council to be approved by the county counsel. Before that, any department that had room in its budget could sign a contract with an outside attorney.
Monterey County Counsel George McKee said it’s normal for county governments to strike a balance between handling legal issues in-house and outsourcing some of the legal duties. McKee said his office handles 95 percent of Monterey County’s legal issues, but that percentage is likely to be lower for particularly large or small counties, such as San Benito or Los Angeles County. Monterey County has 17 staff attorneys, McKee said. San Benito’s legal team, on the other hand, consists of County Counsel Dennis Le Clere and three deputies.
“They’re very capable and good attorneys, but they’re too small too handle a lot of litigation,” McKee said.
County Administrative Officer Susan Thompson said there’s no hard-and-fast rule to determining when outside attorneys are brought in.
“It depends on the complexity and his area of expertise,” she said.
One example of this practice is, in fact, the supervisors’ recently renewed contract with a previous county counsel. On Tuesday, the supervisors approved a one-year extension to the county’s contract with Claude Biddle, who served as interim counsel in 2005. According to Thompson and Le Clere, Biddle has expertise in code enforcement and ongoing litigation that makes him a useful consultant. In January, they asked the board to approve a contract of up to $70,000 with Biddle, but the supervisors balked, and a reduced, $50,000 contract was approved on Tuesday. Thompson said it’s unlikely that Biddle will actually be paid $50,000; she noted that the county only paid him $5,692 last year.
Despite the cuts, the county’s outside legal expenses continue to be a significant chunk of change. For example, the district attorney’s office recently paid lawyer Nancy Battel more than $186,000 to prosecute its case against the anonymous group Los Valientes. In addition, total outside legal expenditures during the last fiscal year were more than double the combined salaries for Le Clere and his deputies.
However, Thompson said the current expenditures aren’t particularly unusual when compared to other counties. Thompson noted that the policy was implemented before she joined the county, but she said the scrutiny of county policy was likely just a part of the larger cuts.
Le Clere agreed that the outside legal expenses aren’t particularly high.
“I guess we’ve got a lot of good people who don’t like to sue,” he said. “Knock on wood.”
Anthony Ha covers local government for the Free Lance. Reach him at 831-637-5566 ext. 330 or [email protected].
