JT reporter Stephanie Brien has a well-done story today on the city already exceeding its budget for legal fees. Brien found the city is already $10,000, and Alderman Tom Friedl is quoted saying that an additional $100,000 allocated for legal services last month probably won't last through the year.
It makes me wonder how the city so grossly underestimated its legal budget. Is this an unusually litigious year?
It looks so. The City Attorney's office spent $18,802 on outside lawyers in 2005 and budgeted $57,200 for outside legal services in 2006 and 2007. Budgeting $125,000 in 2008 was a significant bump ... just not significant enough.
Why is it so much more this year? Does it have anything to do with the former city Attorney retiring and the one who replaced him not doing his job? I'm not saying this is the reason, only speculating. Do any of the other cases also involve the city Administrator?
ReplyDeleteThe $11,000 fee for duplicating computer hard drives for the Tingle investigation needs to be investigated. Can someone let us know how many hard drives had to be duplicated? And who duplicated them?
ReplyDeleteSeriously, this needs to be investigated - Dustin?
I could duplicate ONE hard drive for $50!