The City of Holbrook has found themselves in a budget crisis after spending an unprecedented amount on attorney fees over the fiscal year. During last week’s meeting of the Holbrook City Council the problem was discussed at length.
“We are on track to spend over a half a million dollars on attorney fees,” Mayor Kathleen Smith said during discussion on the issue. The city originally budgeted $123,000 for attorney fees for this fiscal year. This is up from the previous year’s budget in which the city budgeted $55,000 and spent $67,000.
The city passed an amendment to the budget to take $257,209 from other areas to make up for some of the budget but acknowledged that more money will likely need to be allocated later to continue covering costs. Those potential future adjustments will likely come from the code enforcement budget.
This meeting saw cuts to several departments, $7,500 was taken from the library’s budget, $35,000 was taken from the golf course, of those golf course funds $20,000 was allocated to clubhouse improvements. In addition, $41,541, more than half of the $70,791 budgeted for the senior citizens center, was moved to cover the fees. The city will be taking $133,168 from the fire department but $120,000 of that is excess because the purchase of a fire truck came in under budget.
One of the contributing factors to those large attorney expenses is that currently the city is sending an attorney to court every time someone with a ticket from animal control appears before the judge. City Manager Sharon Jakubowski Wolz said that the city code is written in a way in which if someone is bit by a dog, the city must send an attorney to court for the case. Jakubowski Wolz told council that there could be a cost saving if the city were able to change the code to allow for an animal control representative to go to court in the same way a police officer would show up in court and not the city’s attorney.
Another issue is the city utilizes a multitude of law firms including The Doyle Firm, PCC, Brown & Brown Law Offices, Pierce Coleman PCC and Solomon Law Offices for different issues from dog bites, to water rights litigation, contracts and other litigation.
Mayor Smith summed up the current situation for council, “We have spent $339,394 in seven months. If we save $15,000 a month for Pierce Coleman to finish the (fiscal) year that’s an additional $75,000. Code enforcement based on that is around $8,000 average a month, that’s another $42,000. So potentially there’s an additional $117,000 to finish up the year on the path we’re going.” Smith added, “That’s not including the Patel case, so that’s easily another $100,000.” The Patel case is in reference to ongoing litigation the city is involved in with local hotel owner Anil Patel, who claims that the city greatly diminished the value of his property, the Howard Johnson hotel, located at 2608 Navajo Blvd., by not allowing a transitional housing project that ChangePoint wanted to purchase the hotel for.
If the city takes that figure noted by Smith and decreases it by the potential savings with a change to policy for animal control and consolidating the law firms they utilize, it is still likely over half a million dollars will be spent for legal services if the city continues in this direction. The total budget for the City of Holbrook is just under $7.3 million.
The city did end their business relationship with Soloman Law Offices beginning this month to consolidate the number of law firms they work with. The council also directed that all requests for attorney consultation go through Jakubowski Wolz for her to determine whether the call for the attorney is truly necessary.
After this direction was suggested, Jakubowski Wolz informed the council it might not have a significant impact saying, “My perspective in reviewing things, perhaps, in the past you have not gone through legal counsel when you should have to keep us out of trouble.” The city manager did later tell council that she believes the prices go down as she becomes more comfortable with understanding what should go to the attorney and what can be dealt with in-house.
Councilmember Robert Black stated that there were obvious indicators of excessive use and recalled a $1 a year lease agreement that had to be sent back to the attorney for review three times before it was finalized.
Vice Mayor Mike Nilsson informed the council, “A city attorney in our area makes between $116,000 and $160,000.” Suggesting that the council just hire a salaried attorney to work at city hall and look over all the city’s legal needs.
Jakubowski Wolz told council they could possibly liquidize the city’s certificate of deposits (CDs) to cover the costs. Mayor Smith struck down the idea as the conversation began, saying that she wasn’t willing to consider taking money that is supposed to be used for capital projects such as street improvements to cover this cost of the attorney fees.
Mayor Smith summed up the thoughts of the council by saying, “Yes, contracts are important to make sure we are legal and protected but to what end? We have a fiduciary duty as a council to make sure we’re spending their (the citizens’) tax money wisely.”
In response to this budget crisis the city has put a freeze on all hiring until next fiscal year, which begins in July. The council advised that every position except for department heads go through council to determine if the role needs to be filled before the next fiscal year.
A majority of the council at some point during the meeting expressed concern to the city manager for how the spending has continued under her direction. Mayor Smith noted that this has continued despite a December meeting with Jakubowski Wolz asking her to get the attorney spending under control. Councilmember Black also responded to the situation saying, “Think of what we could’ve done with $300,000.”
Jakubowski Wolz repeatedly responded to questions from council without definitive answers on where the money was being spent. She told council that they are reviewing contracts but later admitted there is currently only one contract being written for the city. The contract is a purchase and sale agreement with Roadrunner LLC for land to hold drag races near the new motocross track on Highway 377. A contract, it was noted, that should be straightforward and be similar enough to the city’s past contracts. The city manager had very little input outside of changing the animal control policy to decrease costs and said that she’s recently wrote a contract herself to send to the lawyer for review to save money and despite that effort the costs have continued to skyrocket.
The day following the meeting, the council scheduled a special executive session meeting for Monday evening of this week with the only item noted to discuss the performance and employment of the city manager, followed by action pertaining to the employment of the city manager. The details from the meeting were not available as of press time.
The council also reviewed the city’s emergency management plan, with discussion on how the city would respond with local law enforcement. Holbrook Unified School District utilizes an emergency notification system and informed the mayor that it could be used by the city if needed. The plan requires staff to be trained with response exercises, emergency response sites assigned for incident command centers and in the event of a local incident, it’s the mayor who declares if it is an emergency. Both the city clerk and the chief of police are the public information officers in those instances.
Also, during the meeting, resident Meghan Carbonneau and her two young sons spoke to the council about possibly allowing youth to raise swine in the city during the months leading up to the county fair. A law that mimics a similar ordinance in Taylor that allows more people to participate in raising pigs. The mayor noted that city administration will review the request and respond withing 30 days. The council also approved the Feb. 12 meeting minutes and approved a new city logo.
The council meeting ended with an executive session to consult with its legal counsel regarding the following subjects: advice on hiring, recruiting and promotional process set forth in the city charter, code and personnel policies. As well as reviewing hiring, compensation and employment considerations for the public works director, assistant city manager and the city clerk. No action was taken following the executive session.
