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Home My WebLink AboutS2-City Attorney , - CITY OF SAN BERNARDINO - REQUEST FOR COUNCIL ACTION From: JAMES F. PENMAN Subject: Dept: City Attorney C -, '"' n li1L I ;,u//V1i Date: April 2, 1997 Synopsis of Previous Council action: None. Recommended motion: None. Oral report and discussion. Contact person: James F. Penman Supporting data attached: Staff Report FUNDING REQUIREMENTS: Amount: N / A Source: (Acct. No.) (Acct. Description) Council Notes: 75-0262 SAVINGS IN EXPENDITURES ON LITIGATION AND STAFF ?~ Signature Phone: 5355 Ward: All Finance: '-//7/97 t'l'l Agenda Item No...) "'-- t' ~ STAFF REPORT At the last regular meeting of the Mayor and Common Council (March 17, 1997), the City Attorney's Office reported a decline in lawsuits filed against the City and a decline in the number of lawsuits handled by outside attorneys. The March 17, 1997 report to the Mayor and Common Council, presented prior to the Measure S election, stated that as a result of these changes an adjustment to staff will be made in the proposed 1997-98 budget and a report would be forthcoming at the April 7, 1997, meeting of the Mayor and Council. Realizing that the sooner savings are made the more significant their impact, we have decided to implement certain savings this budget year. On this council agenda are recommendations for promotions of the Acting Senior Assistant City Attorney to Senior Assistant City Attorney and of a Legal Secretary to Operations Supervisor to replace the retiring Operations Supervisor. The City Attorney's Office will then leave unfilled the position of Senior Deputy and one Legal Secretary position. The Senior Deputy position has actually been vacant since that individual was named Acting Senior Assistant City Attorney effective February 17, 1997. The proposed promotions will be effective April 16, 1997, if approved by the Mayor and Common Council. Personnel savings in the City Attorney's Office for fiscal year 96-97 will be approximately $40,300. This includes the savings from leaving the above-described positions vacant as well as the lower salaries the promoted personnel will receive as compared to the previous long-time incumbents of those positions. We intend to leave these two positions vacant and unfunded in the 1997-98 fiscal year budget. By assigning more cases to Deputy City Attorneys and fewer to outside counsel, the outside counsel charges will be saved this fiscal year by approximately $90,000 (including the $82,000 the City Council transferred to Public Works for the Mello Roos District bill on March 17). By aggressively preparing more cases for trial, less cases are being filed against the City by lawyers hoping for quick settlements. These lawyers cannot make the money they hope to on a case if the pre-trial preparation is extensive and/or if the case is tried. This is but one factor in the reason we are being sued less frequently. The drop in lawsuits has also resulted in a drop in litigation related costs, i.e. expert witnesses, depositions, cost of documentary evidence, investigations, etc. Therefore, we estimate a savings in the litigation expenses category this year of approximately $45,000. Our total estimated savings for fiscal year 96-97 are approximately $175,300. The Mayor has asked each department to cut 5% from the amount funded this year from next fiscal year's proposed budget. Despite the protections given to the City Attorney's mandated functions by the court in Scott v. Common Council of the City of San Bernardino, we intend to submit a 1997- 98 budget with a 10% reduction in proposed expenditures, if possible. r We are also pleased to report that despite the City Attorney audit recommendation that we add an attorney and one legal secretary, the results of a more aggressive legal policy have enabled us to recommend that we no longer need to fill those two positions which were added after the audit recommendation. Finally, all major recommendations in the audit have now been implemented except two. The first is the one proposed by this office before the audit and endorsed by the auditors, that each department be "charged" internally for legal costs. This helps to determine which departments utilize legal services the most and which the least. It also tracks lawsuits by the department(s) involved. The City Administrator's Office opposed this recommendation when it was made, and the City Council has yet to implement it. The second recommendation has to do with giving written evaluations to staff (even though the auditing firm admitted that they did not give their own employees written evaluations). We advised the Mayor and Council at the time that we would not implement this recommendation. To do so could transform "at will" employees into employees with a "property interest" in their positions, thus negating the status assigned to such staff by the voters when they approved the City Charter. The subsequent changes in the status of "at will" employees imposed by courts in recent lawsuits have vindicated the wisdom ofthat decision. We are now considering recommendations to the Mayor and Council on the advisability of continuing the policy, followed in other city departments and the EDA, of giving "at will" employees written evaluations and other written material, particularly in personnel" policy manuals", which could remove the ability of the City to remove such employees at the pleasure of the city. pectfully submitted, 7-.~ ames F. Penman City Attorney < CITY OF SAN BERNARDINO OFFICE OF THE CITY ATTORNEY INTEROFFICE MEMORANDUM TO: Fred Wilson, Acting City Administrator FROM: James F. Penman, City Attorney DATE: April 2, 1997 RE: Relocation of City Law Library cc: Mayor Minor, City Council, City Clerk, City Treasurer, Department Directors Thank you for your memorandum of April I, 1997. Several years ago, we first discussed space allocation on the sixth floor of city hall, following the transfer of the Finance Department to the fourth floor. The original plans called for relocating the City's law library, creating a conference room and substantially changing the configuration of the City Attorney and City Administrator offices. This proposed project involved moving individual offices, doors, walls, etc. The cost was estimated at over $50,000. Despite the City's positive financial condition then. this office was never able to approve those plans because of the high cost. Now that Rental Housing has moved to the basement we have again reviewed the space needs of both the City Administrator and City Attorney offices. Our two main problems are space for storage and a law library that is too small to permit us to shelve all of the books we need access to. In addition, the inability to exclude any noise from adjacent areas makes the use of the present library room for research difficult and, at times, impossible. Our conference room is filled with boxes, from the floor to six feet up, and cannot be used for depositions or meetings. We have concluded that we will never be able to afford to do all of the space reallocation originally discussed. We also realize the need to avoid the ongoing cost of renting additional storage space from commercial sources. In recent weeks we have modified the plans to simply move the law library and add a room divider and a door to allow for storage of files and old cases. We first reduced the cost to $26.000, then to $18,000, and now it is down to $4,497 according to your memorandum. By reducing staff and by decreasing the use of outside attorneys, it appears we will save approximately $175,300 in this year's City Attorney budget. Therefore, we should be able to take the $4,497 out of those savings and proceed with the law library relocation and storage room. ~Please proceed ac':,ordingly. . . -:;1. JCo?~. --;J,..-V~ ' i/ "- '--'" ~es F. Penman City Attorney