Campbell & Cohen Explain The Wilber Fiasco

The public will likely appreciate the following detail about the city attorney's services and compensation, which clarifies our reasoning and vote not to amend the current (fiscal year 2008) budget to increase the legal account a second time to provide even more taxpayer money for that purpose from the city's surplus.

The original FY08 budget provided $236,250 (almost $20,000 per month or more than $4,500 per week) for the city attorney's general fund services, plus $10,000 for an outside attorney if needed. The budget also included monies for legal costs associated with other funds, such as water and sewer. Further, the city has other legal counsel for such things as bond issuance and environmental matters, which are not paid from the amounts mentioned.

A few months ago, the council was asked to approve an additional appropriation of $88,750 because the account for the city attorney was nearly depleted. The Tilghman administration requested this amount based only on what the monthly rate had been running, despite our request for detail about anticipated work. This would have increased the general fund portion of the city attorney's costs from $236,250 to $325,000, or by 37.5 percent.

We supported an additional $40,000 so that the basic legal needs of the city could be covered, bringing the total to $276,250 (more than $23,000 per month or more than $5,300 per week), or 17 percent over original budget.

At the time of that approval, we made clear the expectation that the city needed to be conservative in its legal spending. Last Monday, the council was asked to approve yet another $28,750 to fund the city attorney for the balance of FY08, bringing total fees for the entire year to $305,000 ($25,417 per month or $5,865 per week).
This is the third year in a row that the city attorney's services have run over the original budget. In FY07, the audit shows this department ran into the red at year's end, even after a substantial amount of additional money was appropriated. The charter forbids over-expenditure and carries penalties for that act.

We question the management of the legal account and the manner in which decisions are made regarding what legal issues the city pursues. For instance, a recent matter involves the appeal by a property owner who represented himself successfully against a decision of the city's Historic District Commission in the Circuit Court. The property owner won his case. The mayor then authorized the city attorney to file an appeal for the city to the Court of Special Appeals in Annapolis.

The city's legal fees for this case exceeded $18,000. The decision in the local court and the appeals court lead us to wonder why the city pursued this case to a higher court level. On behalf of the appeals court judges, Judge Sharer wrote, "The conduct of that hearing forms the basis for the circuit court's reversal. We reproduce the commission hearing transcript, verbatim, so as not to lose the flavor of the event." The transcript of the decision can be viewed at our website, www.onyoursidesby.blogspot.com.

Having reviewed invoices and seen many of the legal memos generated, we are also concerned about when and why legal opinions are written, when a simple answer at a meeting often would have sufficed. We also question the practice of marking so many legal opinions "privileged and confidential" when other communities appear to take a more open approach.

In addition, we believe that taxpayers and citizens expect their elected officials to strive for the best price and value for services paid for with public money. In pursuit of that belief, we have asked the city to consider handling legal services differently. We have suggested that the city's legal services be competitively bid on a regular basis, that Salisbury consider a staff attorney or that the city negotiate a contract with a flat rate for routine service and an hourly rate for specialized services. The city is a regular and major source of income for any law firm that would hold the contract, so it is reasonable to expect there is room for contract negotiation.

Wicomico County, which serves a populationmore thanthree times that of Salisbury's, budgeted $285,000 for legal counsel in FY08.For FY09, bringing the county attorney in house for dedicated service, the proposed budget is only $286,080.

Under the current charter provisions, the council has limited say in the day-to-day use of the city attorney's time and services. As with all departments, however, the council can choose whether or not to condone and support poor management and unwise spending choices by the administration via how much money it appropriates. On behalf of the taxpayers and citizens we represent, we chose not to use their money to continue subsidizing what we believe is a lack of fiscal responsibility.

This article can also been seen on The Dail;y Times HERE.