The New Smyrna Beach City Attorney has been a controversial figure for several years and a frequent victim of sharp criticism by the SHADOW and humorous concoctions by Kilgore Trout, who named the current incumbent, Frank B. Gummey, Jr., "Gummey Man" and most recently "Gummey Boy." This page will take serious look at the costs of the City Attorney's Office to the taxpayers of New Smyrna Beach and list our recommendations for reducing costs associated with its operations.
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NSB BUDGET REVIEW PAGE
City Attorney
Proposed Budget for the City Attorney's Office from the FY2011-2012 Proposed Budget as posted on the City Website:
The City Manager proposed to spend $388,601 to operate the City Attorney's office for FY 2011-2012. That is a drop of 1.16% from the previous FY (2010-2011).
The Budget states the City Attorney's Office performed the following work:
SHADOW Comments:
The costs for the City Attorney's Office have decreased since last year, but only marginally. The chart above noted a change of less than 1%. A close review of the detail sheets (available by following this LINK) reveal some interesting and creative accounting tactics to achieve this even marginal reduction. For instance, the City has used a $30,000 slice of the Police Department's Forfeiture Fund (SLETF) to pay for the some of the time of the part-time Assistant City Attorney, thus reducing the costs associated with the office. Additionally, unlike departments such as police and fire, they have chosen to lump salaries together, further frustrating detailed review of what pays for who. The printouts located at the LINK do not specify salary against a specific employee of the office. Using last year's W2 forms, we can confirm the Executive Salary for Mr. Gummey at $216,390,34, but the proposed budget seems to allocate $221,402.52, leading us to conclude that the difference is quite possibly his $52000 a year car allowance.
Now that sad, we are left with Regular Salaries at $64,944.66 for 2010. Again using the 2010 W2 statements, we know that his part time Assistant City Attorney took home $64,323.74, which appears to be very close to $64,944.66 under Regular Salaries note above. That leaves the Para-Legal without a salary or possible $30,000 of this is related to the paralegal. In essence a quite confusing way to show salary expense, unless of course you are trying to hide something. We think quite possibly the latter, given the continued light the SHADOW has placed on his excessive salary. That appears further complicated by the News Journal articles of today.
The workload data supplied in the budget concerns the SHADOW and we will be asking for a review of the lease agreements, forfeiture cases, claims, and contracts claimed for the past and future FYs. It seems strange that the City would be entering into 25 separate contracts in one FY, but that could be possible and thus will ask to review them. Keep tuned fro an update.
So what do we conclude from a quick review? We find the following:
1. We could do well to replace the current City Attorney incumbent before his golden parachute of close to a 1/2 million dollars grows anymore. Interesting to note that potential expense of that parachute has not been accounted for anywhere in the budget. By replacing Mr. Gummey with an attorney at half his annual salary, we would recoup any golden parachute payout within about four years. The question that should at the center of the issue here and asked by the City Commissioners, is "can the City obtain equally qualified legal services for less money". We think the answer is YES!
2. The workload stated does not seem to justify a three person office consisting of a full time city attorney, part-time assistant city attorney, and full time paralegal. Most of the resolutions and ordinances prepared and published in the bi-weekly CC agendas, appear rather straight forward and full of boiler plate. The same would seem to apply for forfeiture cases, especially given that a number of these may be county-wide task force generated and thus the purview of the County Attorney's Office. But again, without a review of the items, we do not know for sure. It would seem that many of the claims made against the City are the responsibility of the City's liability insurer, who one would assume also has legal staff to respond and handle negotiations, along with the City Attorney. Again, review of the type of claims will provide further explanation. The question we have here is does the workload possibly dictate a potential for outsourcing and thus elimination of the office entirely? We think it is worth a look.
3. There is no verbiage discussing major cases, litigation records, or actual operation of the office. There are several goals listed, which are as follows:
The goals do not help us with our analysis of the workload or appropriate funding levels for the office. we do note that when he asked for and was given a part-time assistant, the justification included that this assistant would attend meetings to lighten the load.
What options exist? Replacement of the incumbent with a lower salaried lawyer or outsourcing the workload. Both require a plan and one needs some cost analysis, but most importantly both require action soon.
Follow this LINK to see and print out your copy of the Taxpayer's Questions on the Funding of the City Attorney's Office.
