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Home My WebLink AboutMINUTES - 03231993 - S.1 TO: BOARD OF SUPERVISORS • FROM: Sunne Wright McPeak Contra Tom Torlakson Costa DATE: Introduced March 16, 1993 for Action on March 23, 1993 County SUBJECT: Establishment of New Additional Procedures for Selecting Legal Consultants/Outside Attorneys and Reviewing Billing SPECIFIC REQUEST(S) OR RECOMMENDATION(S) & BACKGROUND AND JUSTIFICATION RECOMMENDATION: Refer to the CAO, County Counsel, and the Finance Committee the task of developing new additional procedures for selecting legal consultants/outside attorneys and reviewing billings. Among the procedures that should be considered are: 1 . Requesting proposals or bids from a wide range of legal firms regarding their rates, ancillary charges, and special expertise. Designating the Finance Committee in consultation with the CAO (including Risk Management) and County Counsel to review proposals/bids and recommend an eligible list of acceptable legal firms according to expertise that may be used in the future. 2, When it is determined by the County Counsel, Risk Management, CAO, and Board of Supervisors that it is appropriate to engage special counsel for particular litigation, specific bids regarding the case should be invited from the eligible list of firms with the required expertise. 3. After reviewing the bids, the CAO and County Counsel should recommend a particular attorney and/or firm for the case with a proposed limit on the billings. The limit should not be exceeded without approval from the CAO. The limit should be available for public information after the case is resolved. 4. Specific individuals in the County Counsel and CAO's office should be designated to monitor the billings to ensure compliance with the approved rates and accepted bid. Status reports should be given to the Finance Committee for review. 5. Attorneys and firms who have worked for the county in the past should be requested to provide pro bono work for the county. In particular, it will be helpful during the next,two years of very contentious budget deliberations between the state and counties to request proportionate pro bono work for Contra Costa County from the firms-that have worked for the county during the last three years. CONTINUED ON ATTACHMENT: YES SIGNATURE: RECOMMENDATION OF COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR RECOMMENDATION OF BOARD COMMITTEE APPROVE OTHER SIGNATURE(S) ACTION OF BOARD ON March 23 , 1993 APPROVED AS RECOMMENDED OTHER VOTE OF SUPERVISORS X UNANIMOUS (ABSENT TT ) 1 HEREBY CERTIFY THAT THIS IS A TRUE AYES: NOES: AND CORRECT COPY OF AN ACTION TAKEN ABSENT: ABSTAIN: AND ENTERED ON THE MINUTES OF THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS ON THE DATE SHOWN. County Administrator —March 23 CC: Finance Cte ATTESTED arc1993 County'Couns el Phil Batchelor, Clerk of the Board of Contact : Karen Mitchof f SupwvisorswWContyAdminisftaW �� •�� RY '.&. .... DEPUTY New Additional Procedures for Selecting Legal Consultants Page Two 6. During 1993-94 Budget Review, consider how to maximize the utilization of County Counsel to assist and augment the expertise of outside counsel when it is required. The CAO, County Counsel, and Finance Committee should report back to the Board of Supervisors within 60 days. BACKGROUND: Although the County Counsel and CAD's offices have worked sincerely and diligently to protect the taxpayers' and public's interest in defending lawsuits and preventing litigation through the selective use of legal consultants or outside attorneys, it is appropriate to ensure that the most cost-effective rates are charged the county and the taxpayers. The above proposed procedures introduce competitive bidding (in addition to the case comparison done already by staff) and cost containment measures. These are prudent steps to ensure that the public and taxpayers are getting the most cost-effective services possible. COUNTY COUNSEL'S OFFICE CONTRA COSTA COUNTY MARTINEZ, CALIFORNIA Dace: March 22, 1993 To: Phil Batchelor, County Administrator From: Victor J. Westman, County Counsel Re: County Counsel Staffing Level Introduction and Summary. On 3-17-93, you asked that this office provide you with a report on the staffing level of this office, including a comparison with other large California counties . ]Based upon information this office has recently obtained, we have prepared the attached survey chart detailing the staff size of a number of county counsel offices and the ratio of attorneys in each office per thousands of population in the involved county. All of the chart's information was obtained from the involved county counsel offices . While every county has unique aspects and organization as to its civil legal needs, the attached survey chart illustrates that this county has a lean and (to some extent) bare-bones staffing level of county counsel attorneys and support staff per thousands of population compared to the surveyed county counsel offices . Concerning the chart, we understand that Ventura County, with a somewhat higher attorney per thousand population ratio than this county (as of 12-92) , referred all of its tort/claims litigation out to private legal counsel. Fresno County (as of 12792) very frequently refers its tort/claims litigation out to private legal counsel. It has been indicated that in the past Alameda County regularly employed private legal assistance but has now established and is expanding an in-house tort/claims litigation unit similar to that proposed for Contra Costa County. We believe that Riverside and Sacramento Counties refer all of their tort/claim litigation matters out to private legal counsel and have a substantially higher support staff ratio than this office. On the other hand, county counsel offices such as Kern and Santa Barbara Counties (with much higher staff attorney to population ratios than Contra Costa) handle all or virtually all of their property damage or personal liability tort/claim litigation with their own in-house staffs . It may be presumed that if this office were staffed to the levels of Kern or Santa Barbara Counties it could adequately 'handle virtually all of this County' s tort litigation and related legal matters . Nevertheless, the additior..al cost of that staffing level might approximate the current cost of employed private legal counsel . Phil Batchelor, County Administrator 2 Re: Staffing Level Background. In 1981, this office had a total of 16 attorneys . Now, in 1993, it has a total of 19 attorneys . During this twelve ( 12 ) year period, there has been a substantial increase in the County' s population, related problems and in the laws governing the complex manner in which public business must be conducted. These increases have greatly intensified the County' s need for civil legal services . It should be noted that the additional three attorneys were not added to address the increasing regular workload of this office but to assist with additional responsibilities which this office assumed. Last year one attorney was added as part of the program for this office to undertake some of the tort/claim litigation matters otherwise being assigned out entirely to private legal counsel . Approximately two- thirds of one attorney is used to address the 1985 assumption by this office of the primary responsibility for providing legal services needed by the Contra Costa County Housing Authority. The remaining one-plus attorney was added to cover the substantial increase in the demand for juvenile legal services which this office has had to address over the last seven years . In fiscal year 1987-88, this office was required to perform 5,819 hours of legal services for juvenile dependency proceedings . For FY 1991-92, this office provided 8,500 hours of legal services to this same juvenile-dependency area . Based upon our current statistics, we project that this office will be required to devote at least 9, 000 hours of legal .service to this area during FY 1992-93 . In other words, from 1987-88 through 1992-93, this office has been required to devote approximately 3, 180additional hours of its staff time to the juvenile- dependency area. The Auditor-Controller' s office indicates for budgeting and billing rate purposes that this office's attorneys working regular hours can reasonably be expected to provide approximately 1, 800 hours of direct legal services during the course of a year. Therefore, even with the addition of one-plus attorney to address the juvenile area during the last seven years, it has not been enough to compensate for the increase in the workload in that area from FY 1987-88 and the loss of staff attorneys' time for other purposes . Also, during the same six-to-seven year period, demands of the Social Service department for legal services in non-juvenile areas (e.g. , general assistance, personnel disputes, related non-juvenile litigation, etc . ) has significantly increased. In FY 1987-88, this office provided 1, 118 hours of legal services to Social Service for the above-noted non-juvenile areas . For FY 1991-92 , this office was called upon to provide 3, 457 hours of legal services to Social Service for similar non-juvenile areas . Again, as earlier noted, this significant Phil Batchelor, County Administrator 3 Re: Staffing Level increase of approximately 1 ,400 hours of required additional legal services has not been concurrently matched by additional staffing for this area. In part, the professional staff of this office has attempted to ° address the noted circumstances by the regular performance of substantial amounts of overtime in addition to their regular workday duties (e.g. , during the first eight months of FY 1992-93 : S . Anderson - 198 hrs . ; D. Schmidt - 212 hrs . ; G. Harvey - 214 hrs . , etc) . Specifically, with regard to legal services in the land use area, Sil Marchesi, for many years, has been primarily responsible for the handling of major planning litigation (e.g. , landfill site disputes, East County and Bethel Island general and specific plans, etc. ) and responding to the daily requests for administrative legal advice in this and several other County department areas . During the two year period (FYs 1989-91 ) that the County employed special private legal counsel to assist with the completion of a new County General Plan and related matters, Mr. Marchesi was addressing the aforenoted already existing and continuing legal matters by performing 512 hours of non- compensated overtime (12 .75 regular . workweeks ) in addition to his regular 8+ hour workdays . In this same period, Mr. Marchesi did not utilize and lost 71 hours of "comp" time available for working this overtime and, instead, worked those 71 additional hours for the benefit of the County. Obviously, it would not have been a prudent decision at that time to have assigned this office' s staff (e.g. , Mr. Marchesi ) the primary legal responsibility for formulating a new County-wide general plan when it was already shouldered with existing legal service responsibilities and staff was performing (on a non-compensated basis ) hundreds of hours of overtime. If over the last three or four years this office had been staffed to the attached chart' s average level of per thousand population ( 1 - 34 , 933) , similar to that of Sacramento County, it would have had at least five or six more attorneys and two to three more clerical staff to address many legal matters which in the recent past have been assigned to private legal counsel (e.g. , new County-wide general plan, etc . ) . Of course, the total annual cost of employing a full complement of five or six additional staff attorneys and two or three more secretaries during those years could have ranged up to $500, 000 or $600, 000 a year. Conclusion. I trust that it is appreciated from the foregoing this office' s low ratio of attorneys to the County population, and the amount of regular and continuing overtime being worked by its attorneys, that it is occasionally necessary for the County to employ Phil Batchelor, County Administrator 4 Re: Staffing Level private legal counsel when major legal problems or litigation are presented and must be addressed in a timely manner. VJW:pf:df Attachment cc: Supervisors, District Offices prlstaffing.vjw COUNTY COUNSEL LAV�T OFFICE SURVEY 1)IF—CEM13ER 1992 COUNTY POPULATION ATTYS INCL CC CLER SUPP PARALGL ATTY/POP.RATIO Alameda 1,300,000 24.5 9.5 0 1 - 53.061 Contra Costa 860,000 19 9 0 1 - 44,526 Riverside 1,170,413 28 18 0 1 - 41,786 San Bernadino 1,200,000 31 20 0 1 - 38,709 San Mateo 650,000 17.5 10 1 1 - 37,143 Santa Clara 1,400,000 38 32 8 1 - 36,842 Sacramento 1,100,000 32 15 1 1 - 34,375 Ventura 686,868 20 14 0 1 -..34,343 San Joaquin 400,000 12 6 0 1 - 33,333 Fresno 621,000 22 10 5 1 - 28,227 Kern 559,900 20 10 4 1 - 27,995 Marin 215,000 12 8 1 1 - 17,917 Santa Barbara 369,608 25 10 3 1 - 14,784 CITY ATTORNEY LAW OFFICE SURVEY DECEMBER 1992 CITY POPULATION ATTYS INCL CA CLER SUPP PARALGL ATTY/POF.R.ATIO Stockton 221,500 9 7 0 1 - 24,611 Sacramento 370,000 17 11 1 1 - 21,765 Richmond 87,425 6 3 0 1 - 14,571 Oakland 350,000+ 30 25 7 1 - 11,667 br/lwofc.svy OFFICE OF THE COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR C O N T R A C O S T A C O U N T Y Administration Building 651 Pine Street, 11th Floor Martinez, California 94553 DATE: March 23, 1993 TO: Phil Batchelor, County Administrator FROM: Claude L. Van Martgr sistant County Administrator SUBJECT: INFORMATION REGARD G THE COST OF INSURING LOSSES VERSUS BEING SELF-INSURED On this date, I received the following information by telephone from Joe Tonda in response to your request for information on the added cost to purchase insurance for Workers ' Compensation, Medical Malpractice, Auto and General Liability coverage. Joe noted that this assumes we could purchase this insurance at all. These figures assume a relatively low deductible, such as $10,000 per case on Auto & General Liability. On Workers ' Compensation and Medical Malpractice, coverage would be first dollar. INCREASED COSTS TO FULLY INSURE THE COUNTY CURRENT COST INSURED COST INCREASED COST Workers Compensation: $ 8.8 Million $10 . 8 Million $ 2 .0 Million Medical Malpractice ( funded at 80%) : $ 2 .5 Million $ 5.5 Million $ 3 . 0 Million Auto & General Liability: $ 6 . 0 Million $ 9 . 0 Million $ 3 . 0 Million SUB-TOTAL (County only) : $17 . 3 Million $25 . 3 Million $ 8 . 0 Million Contra Costa County & Riverview Fire Protection Districts : Workers Compensation: $ 1 . 6 Million $ 2 . 0 Million $ .4 Million GRAND TOTAL: $18 . 9 Million $27 . 3 Million $ 8 . 4 Million