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HomeMy WebLinkAboutFY 2024 (Office of the County Attorney) Budget NarrativeOFFICE OF THE COUNTY ATTORNEY FY 2024 BUDGET AND OPERATIONS SYNOPSIS Matthew M. Bracken County Attorney 2 Department: COUNTY ATTORNEY Fund: GENERAL FUND 1.FY 2023 to FY 2024 BUDGET COMPARSION Fund: GENERAL FUND Department: COUNTY ATTORNEY FY 2023 FY 2024 $ + / - % + / - Salary and Wages 1,830,974 2,117,224 286,250 15.6% Benefits 1,094,175 1,249,429 155,254 14.2% Utilities 4,035 4,297 262 6.5% Vehicle/Equip, Lease 0 0 0 0.0% Operations 544,617 544,355 -262 0.0% 3,473,801 3,915,305 441,504 12.7% 0 500,000 1,000,000 1,500,000 2,000,000 2,500,000 Salary and Wages Benefits Utilities Vehicle/Equip, Lease Operations FY 2023 and FY 2024 Comparison FY 2023 FY 2024 53%31% 0%0%16% FY 2023 Operating Budget Salary and Wages Benefits Utilities Vehicle/Equip, Lease Operations 54%32% 0%0%14% FY 2024 Operating Budget Salary and Wages Benefits Utilities Vehicle/Equip, Lease Operations 3 2. MAJOR CHANGES AND/OR VARIANCES IN OPERATIONS BUDGET The only major change to our operations budget is the inclusion of a new deputy county attorney position. We currently have 13 full time attorneys and one part time attorney. We have five attorneys that handle litigation matters, with the remainder of the attorneys handling primarily transactional work. A breakdown of how many open matters per attorney is below (these matters vary in complexity, with litigation attorneys generally having more assigned matters): CHART 1 MATTERS PER ATTORNEY Our matters are broken into 2 primary categories, litigation and advice and counsel (or transactional work): CHART 2 MATTERS PER DIVISION 4 The litigation matters remain open for several years while the advice and counsel matters are generally closed within days or weeks. These two categories are broken down further into general categories: CHART 3 KIND OF MATTER We generally see around 100 new legal transactional requests per month, and we close out about the same amount of legal transactional requests. However, based on the CHART 2 above there remains 200 transactional matters outstanding. Every time a new legal request is received it sits behind the 200 open transactional matters, or backlog. While every legal matter is eventually closed and completed, the backlog creates weeklong delays on all legal requests. This results in client dissatisfaction and a general feeling that all legal matters sit for weeks. Client sentiment is accurate as requests do sit for weeks in order to approach the front of the line. Our backlog has decreased dramatically over the last few years. In February of 2020, our backlog consisted of about 400 transactional matters. This reduction can be attributed to filling vacancies and stabilizing turn-over in our office. However, our office remains out of balance. A larger delay seems to exist with construction related contracts, with public works contracts seeing a slower legal processing due to the larger number of contracts. If this position is approved a portion of the attorneys time will be in aiding in the reduction of outstanding public works contracts and backlog in general. The County of Kaua‘i also lacks a Risk Manager. While our attorneys provide legal guidance on potential risks, we do not analyze the long-term effects of decisions or monitor the effect on the County’s insurance premiums. If approved this position would also act as an insurance coordinator, 5 taking over the management of the insurance program from the Director of Finance. Our insurance reporting requirements have changed dramatically over the last few years. Our premiums have increased and our reporting requirements are more onerous. For example, our general liability policy now requires quarterly loss runs, while historically we just had to report claims that might exceed our self-insurance threshold. Specific policies such as our lifeguard insurance policy also require notification of significant injury and not just notification of claims received. This new attorney would be tasked with ensuring that these reporting requirements are being met. I envision this attorney initially taking on the transactional legal backlog and the insurance coordinator responsibilities. I would expect it to take over a year to help clear the backlog of transactional matters. After the legal backlog is reduced this individual could then focus on developing a comprehensive risk management program. 3. OPERATIONAL CHALLENGES Salary and workload will likely continue to affect retention. However, the addition of a new attorney should help with the overall workload. 4. TOP 3 OPERATIONAL HIGHLIGHTS FROM FY 2023 • Contract automation, Phase 1 was rolled out to KPD, DPW-Solid Waste, and DPW-Waste Water at the beginning of the FY. The Transportation Agency was included in Contract Automation later in the FY. The contract automation interface will allow our clients to answer simple non-legalese questions, which will then populate and build custom contracts. It should reduce the time our clients spend preparing contracts and reduce attorney review time and speed up the contracting and review process altogether. • Produced multiple training videos covering various topics including: general contract administration, Procurement, UIPA, Sunshine Law, Ethics, and Fiduciary Duty. • Completed an update to the Professional Services (Design) contract template.