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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAgenda - 04-06-2010-10a 1 ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS ACTION AGENDA ITEM ABSTRACT Meeting Date: April 6, 2010 Action Agenda Item No. - U SUBJECT: A Report on the costs and Benefits Associated with Bringing Social Services SU p and child Support Enforcement Legal Services In-house DEPARTMENT: County Attorney D ty y PUBLIC HEARING: (YIN) No ATTACHMENT (S): INFORMATION CONTACT: (A) Memorandum (B) Statement of Budget Scenarios John Roberts, 245-2318 PURPOSE: To rovide the Board of County Commissioners with information regarding the p possibility replacing ossibili of re lacin the current legal services model for the Department of Social Services (DSS) and Child Support Enforcement. BACKGROUND: Orange County provides certain human services to its residents. Among these services are the Department of Social Services' child and adult protective services and p Child Support Enforcement's child support collection. Each of these services requires concurrent legal services. These are fairly specialized areas of law, particularly child and adult protective services. For a number of years, Orange county has provided these legal services through contractual relationships with various attorneys. Currently DSS legal services are provided b Northen Blue, LLP (carol Holcomb), a Chapel Hill law firm, and Child Support Enforcement legal services are provided by Coleman Gledhill Hargrave & Peek (Leigh Peek), a Hillsborough law firm. The two attorneys who primarily provide these services are highly experienced and well-regarded by the local legal community. There is strong support in the p judicial le g al and community to maintain the current system by which, and people by whom, these legal services are provided. Bringing these legal services in-house through hiring an attorney g and legal assistant to be housed in DSS would save Orange County tens of thousands of dollars, but could also result in a loss of effectiveness in providing the services. FINANCIAL IMPACT: Between $29,000 and $45,000 could be saved annually with the creation of two new positions and bringing these legal services in-house. RECOMMENDATIONS): -The Manager recommends the Board receive this report. 2 ORANGE COUNTY �4���� c°���� P.O. BOX 8181 Office of the County 200 S. CAMERON STREET it Attorney HILLSBOROUGH,NC 27278 t "tfi cat 4 To Orange County Commissioners Valerie P.Foushee, Chair Bernadette Pelissier,Vice Chair Alice M. Gordon Pam Hemminger Barry Jacobs Mike Nelson Steve Yuhasz From: John Roberts Date: March 22, 2010 Re: Department of Social Services and Child Support Enforcement Legal Services Currentl y Orange e County provides Legal Services to the Department of Social Services ("DSS") and Child Support Enforcement ("CSE") through contracts with outside counsel. Each of the attorneys who p rimarily provide these services are very experienced and highly respected in the local legal community.- Carol Holcomb of-Northen Blue primarily provides legal services for DSS. These services include child and adult protective services and defending Orange County and DSS in appeals of judicial rulings. Leigh Peek of Coleman, Gledhill, Hargrave & Peek primarily provides legal services to CSE. These services mainly involve the prosecution of child support enforcement actions against parents who are not current on child support obligations. Each of these services is important and somewhat specialized. The DSS legal service is related to the protection of the mental and physical health of children in Orange County. The CSE legal service is related to the protection of the financial security of children in Orange County. These are legal services that cannot be fully provided by current county staff. It is primarily for this reason that Orange County has elected to provide these services through contracts with outside counsel. The contracts are $165,000 (Budgeted amount for this contract is $155,000) with Northen Blue and $50,000 with Coleman, Gledhill, Hargrave & Peek and another $5,000 in CSE contracts with other counsel for situations in which conflicts arise. North Carolina reimburses the County for approximately 50% of the Northen Blue Contract and approximately 66% of the Coleman, Gledhill, Hargrave & Peek contract and conflict contracts, resulting in a net cost to the county of between $96,500 and $101,200 for Fiscal Year 2009-2010. The work related to these contracts involves a maximum of six to seven days in court per month and significant work outside the courtroom. According to the numerous attorneys to whom I have spoken the services are currently provided in a highly effective and time efficient manner. In my opinion there are three options for providing these legal services in the future: Page 2 of 2 Option one is to maintain the status quo and continue providing the services as they are currently provided. The benefit of this option is to retain the services of the skilled and experienced attorneys who have provided these services for a number of years in orange County and elsewhere. This option maintains the current level of effectiveness and court-time efficiency. Option two is to consolidate the two contracts and set a ceiling of approximately $180,000 as the maximum allowable price for all of the services. The benefits of this option are the likelihood that one of the law firms currently providing these services would be awarded the contract thus preserving the current experience level in providing the services and an approximate net cost savings to orange County of between $16,000 and $19,000 annually. This option maintains the current level of effectiveness and court-time efficiency with slightly improved cost efficiency. Option three is to bring these legal services in-house. I believe the most cost-effective approach to providing these services in-house is the creation of a staff attorney position and a legal assistant position to be housed in DSS. The DSS staff attorney and legal assistant would serve both DSS and CSE. These positions would be supported as needed by the paralegal and staff attorney position in the County Attorney's office. The support rode by these two positions in the County Attorney's office would possibly result in up to 20% of the paralegal's and staff attorney's time devoted to supporting the DSS staff attorney and legal assistant. The potential financial savings is the primary benefit to this option. That savings is between $29,000 and $34,000 with a potential for greater savings as detailed in Attachment B. The additional potential savings could range from approximately $10,800 u to $16,000. This method improves cost efficiency but does not provide a pp �' p guaranty of maintaining effectiveness and time efficiency at the same level. It is important to note that options two and three, and particularly option three, are strongly opposed by some members of the local legal community. At Chief District Court Judge Joe Buckner's suggestion I contacted several members of the legal community to discuss the quality of the service provided to DSS and CSE. Each of the attorneys to whom I spoke believes strongly that Carol Holcomb and Leigh Peek are the most experienced and efficient attorneys available to provide these important services. Most of the attorneys to whom I spoke also support maintaining_the current system with only two stating they understood the budgetary reasons behind considering a change. Several of the local District Court judges are also opposed to any change. Generally,that opposition stems from two views, one, that the two attorneys who primarily provide these services are so experienced as to be nearly irreplaceable and two, that these two attorneys are highly efficient and keep the court time needed for DSS and CSE cases at a minimum. However, I do not wish to misstate their positions to you and encourage you to speak to Judges Joe Buckner, Beverly Scarlett and Page Vernon if you have questions on their opinions. The directors of DSS and CSE share the opinion that the method of providing these services in a way that best serves the clients of DSS and CSE is the current method due to the experience level of the attorneys who primarily provide the services. The DSS Board is also in favor of maintaining the current method of providing these legal services. 44coLetrif _ 4 BUDGET SCENARIOS FY 2009-10 FY 2010-11 Option 1 DSS Contract $16500 $165,000 Budgeted Amount $15500 -- CSE Contract $ 50,000 $ 5000 Conflict Contracts $ 5,000 $ 51000 State Reimbursement $118,800 $118,800 Cost to County $101,200 $1019200 If limited to budgeted amount $969500 Option 2 Unified Contract -- $180,000 State Reimbursement* -- $ 99732 Cost to County* $ 809208 Option 3 DSS Staff Attorney(Grade 27) $ 95,400 Starting Salary of$78,000 Reimbursement * $ 52,890 DSS Legal Assistant(Grade 11) --- $ 42,874 Starting Salary of$32,000 Reimbursement(DSS Only) $ 21,437 Operations -- $ 10 000 Reimbursement 5 544 $ , Cost to County* $ 689403 Other Potential Cost Savings for the County: Assuming a support role by the Office of the County Attorney involving 20% of the staff attorney and paralegal's time spent on DSS and CSE work the County realize reimbursements from the State to the County's general fund for that time. Current Cost Potential Reimbursement Minimum Maximum Paralegal* $ 53,853 $ 0 $ 5,385 Staff Attorney * $ 82,255 $ 10,857 $ 1 0,857 *Approximate. Actual numbers would depend on the percentage of tune dedicated to each service.