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HomeMy WebLinkAboutResponse Budget Review Follow-Up 04-02-2020 Part 2OFFICE OF THE COUNTY ATTORNEY THE COUNTY OF KA U A'I DEREK S. K. KAIVAKAI\II, IIIAYOR NIICHAf,L A. DAHTLIG, N,TAIVACINC DIRECTOR \IA.TTHEI\ \I, BRACI..IN(()L\t1 Al l()R\tj\ MEMORANDUM Honorable Arryl J. Kaneshiro Chair, Kaua'i County Council Matthew Bracken, County Attorney '*r'-'" Michael A Dahilig, Managing Oirector IYdF) April 6, 2020 Fiscal Year 2020-2021 Budget Follow-Up Questions for April2, 2020 This is memorandum is in response to the follow-up questions directed to the Office of the County Attorney frcm AWil 2, 2020. Office of the Countv Attornev 1. Please confirm that you have two (2) current vacancies (Position Numbers E-68 and 123) and describe (in more than a few words) the following: Response: The Human Resource Vacancy Report will address all vacancy & recruitment questions. a. For Position Number E-68 (Recruitment Status "Continuous" in the Vacancy Report of March 15, 2020), explain your recruitment efforts, including important details such as when recruitment started, what stage the recruitment is currently in, and the earliest hire date and/or start date expected. Response: The Human Resource Vacancy Report will address all vacancy & recruitment questions b. For Positron Number 123 ("No Activity"), please explain the date you intend to initiate recruatment, how long you anticipate recruitment taking, and the earliest hire date and/or start date expected. Response: The Human Resource Vacancy Report will also address all vacancy & recruitment questions. 2. Your Budget Narrative references your office having to provide continued legal services with the vacancies of five (5) attorney's this year. Provide an estimate of how much has already been saved in attorney salaries this year. ln addition, please provide those salary savings alongside the increases to Special Counsel expenses for this year? Response vvww.kauai-gov 44.1.1 Rice Street Suite 220 . Lihu'e Hawai'i 96766 . (808) 241-4930 (b) . (808) 2al-5319 (l) An Equal Opportunity Employer NTCHOLAS R. COURSON I;IRsT DI]PUI'I TO: FROM: DATE: RE: No money has been saved by the vacancies. All un-expended salaries have been or will be moved to our special counsel account. 3. For line item "SPECIAL COUNSEL" ($290,000 to $500,000) (page 26), please explain why this large increase would still be needed in the new fiscal year when all five (5) of your attorney vacancies are now filled? Response: We have several litigation cases that we anticipate the further need of special counsel due to conflicts. One such case is Darryl Perry vs. County of Kaua'i. We are also looking to use special counsel to help train newer attorneys by having the attorneys work with Special Counsel on the cases. While we have managed to fill some of the vacancies, we still have one litigation vacancy, a part time attorney in a full time position, and another anticipated vacancy in May. 4. Under'DUES & SUBSCRIPTIONS" ($52,255 to $102,255) (page 26), please explain a. What is "WESTLAW CONTRACT NO. 9423" ($32,677)? Response: Westlaw is an online legal research service. We no longer order paper books. All legal research is conducted on this platform. lt contains statutes, cases, books and treatises that attorney's rely on to render legal opinions/guidance. The subscriptions are used by the County Attorney's office and 2 licenses are utilized by Council Services. Westlaw provjdes access to a vast amount of legal information at both the state and federal levels, including the full tert of legislation, administrative materials, executive decrees, and judicial decisions, as well as summaries of jury verdicts and seftlements. b. What is "CONTRACT AUTOMATION' ($50,000)? Your Budget Narrative stated that this is: to be used by all departments; supported by the Purchasing Division; and a one- time, non-recurring expense. Please explain why this is so expensive, as it simply sounds like the sharing of quality legal contract templates (which the County should be able to access for much less than $50,000). Response: Contract automation software will allow us to transform text-based documents (contracts) and PDF forms (graphical forms having fields, checkboxes, etc.) into contract generation process applications. ln use, a contract generation process application presents an interface of interactive, answer-gathering forms, commonly referred to as an interview. The interview will consist of easy to understand questions that any contract manager should understand. The application will guide users through the process of entering data, numeric answers, and field-specific information. After completing the interview, a user can instantaneously generate a transaction ready contract, as well as all collateral documents (both word processor documents and PDF forms), which will then be sent to an attorney for review. The finished documents will automatically highlight the areas an attorney needs to review, drastically reducing contract review time. By transforming contract documents into process applications, we should be able to dramatically reduce the time it takes to generate new iterations of a contract and collateral closing documents for new transactions. By reducing the time it takes to generate contracts it should increase the County's overall turn around on all procurement and contracts. Perhaps most importantly, by automating the contract generataon process, we should reduce-in many cases, virtually eliminate-human error and, thus, dramatically improve the quality of our documents. The application will automate the procurement and contract process. Positively benefiting every department in the County that does any procurement.