HomeMy WebLinkAboutItem 07 City Attorney Contract Renewal AGENDA ITEM SUMMARY Meeting Date: 1/3/2017
Meeting Type: Regular Meeting
Staff Contact/Dept.: Bob Duey/Finance Staff Phone No: 541-726-3740
Estimated Time: 10 Minutes S P R I N G F I E L D C I T Y C O U N C I L Council Goals: Financially Responsible
and Stable Government
Services
ITEM TITLE:
CITY ATTORNEY CONTRACT RENEWAL
ACTION
REQUESTED:
Approve/Not Approve the renewal of the Leahy, VanVactor, Cox and Melendy
City Attorney’s contract with a two year contract that would expire on June 30,
2018.
ISSUE STATEMENT:
The current contract with the firm of Leahy, VanVactor, Cox and Melendy has
expired. Staff completed an evaluation process of the firm’s services and made the
results available to the Council’s Finance & Judiciary Committee that shared and discussed the results with the firm’s representatives. The Finance & Judiciary
Committee is making the recommendation that a new contract with the firm be
approved by the full Council as a 2-year contract with the terms and conditions identified in the new contract and described in the briefing memorandum.
ATTACHMENTS:
1.) ATT 1 – Council Briefing Memorandum
2.) ATT 2 – 2016 COA Annual Evaluation Summary
3.) ATT 3 – Leahy, VanVactor, Cox and Melenday Contract
DISCUSSION/
FINANCIAL IMPACT:
See Council Briefing Memorandum
Attachment 1 – Page 1 of 3
M E M O R A N D U M City of Springfield
Date: 12/22/2016
To: Gino Grimaldi, City Manager COUNCIL
From: Bob Duey, Finance Director BRIEFING
Subject: City Attorney Contract Renewal MEMORANDUM
ISSUE:
The current contract with the firm of Leahy, VanVactor, Cox and Melendy has expired. Staff
completed an evaluation process of the firm’s services and made the results available to the Council’s Finance & Judiciary Committee that shared and discussed the results with the firm’s representatives.
The Finance & Judiciary Committee is making the recommendation that a new contract with the firm
be approved by the full Council as a 2-year contract with the terms and conditions identified in the new contract and described in the briefing memorandum.
COUNCIL GOALS/MANDATE:
Financially Responsible and Stable Government Services ___________________________________
DISCUSSION: The City contracts with the firm of Leahy, VanVactor, Cox and Melendy for city attorney services. This
contract with the firm acknowledges that the firm’s representatives are directly responsible to the City Council. In most cases, the City Council has directed that the City Manager or their designee will act on their behalf to assist in directing the work of the city attorney’s office for routine City business. The
City’s Municipal Code recognizes the selection of a city attorney as an “exempt professional service” from the normal sourcing activity and the City Council has the authority to either direct source or solicit a
request for qualifications as they see as best in these circumstances.
The Finance and Judiciary Committee has completed its evaluation of the service and is recommending
the following as the key elements of the new contract:
The contract would be for 2 years beginning on July 1, 2016 and expiring on June 30, 2018
The contract price for the first year would increase the hourly rate from $166.36 to $199.63 and increase the retainer for that year from $353,349 to $424,014.
The second year of the contract would see an hourly rate increase from $199.63 to $216.27 and increase the retainer from $424,014 to $459,357.
The estimated retainer hours would remain at 2,124.
While still indicating a highly satisfactory level of service being received by the City from the
firm, it is being asked that the City compete a request for qualifications process prior to the
expiration of the new contract in order complete a due diligence sourcing activity for Springfield citizens
Evaluation
For the annual evaluation process, the Finance Department utilized an anonymous survey monkey that was distributed to City Councilors and numerous staff members. The key elements of the survey included
questions about Overall Performance, Communication, Organizational Effectiveness and Overall Quality
Attachment 1 – Page 2 of 3
of Legal Services. 27 separate questions were asked and in each of the areas, respondents were
encouraged to provide additional comments. The final results included 41 respondents.
Attachment 2 is a results summary of the survey with each of the 27 questions by the 41 respondents
receiving 1 to 4 rating of Highly Satisfactory, Satisfactory, Needs Improvements or Unsatisfactory from each respondent. From all of the questions, 99% of the scores were ranked as Satisfactory or Highly
Satisfactory. In 1% of the cases the ranking received was Needs Improvement or Unsatisfactory. In
some cases additional comments were made by the respondents and all of these comments were shared with both the committee members and city attorneys.
Contract Renewal
The attached table is the history for the past several years of the base contract amount and the hours that
were expected to be needed to perform the required services.
FY11 FY12 FY13 FY14 FY15 FY16
Contract Hours 2,316 2,124 2,124 2,124 2,124 2,124
Rate Per Hour $152.57 $166.36 $152.57 $152.57 $166.36 $166.36
Contract Price $353,352 $353,352 $324,058 $324,348 $353,348 $353,348
The overall cost of the contract between the City and Leahy, Van Vactor, Cox and Melendy has seen very
little increase over the past 6 years. The changes have been:
In FY12 the hourly billing rate was increased by 9.1% and the contracted hours were decreased to
leave the contract price unchanged
In FY13 the City requested all departments to take a reduction in their operating budgets as a
response to the recession and the City Attorney’s office was asked to take a 5% reduction. They offered a higher reduction back to the previous year’s hourly rate.
After the 2 year reduction, in FY15 the hourly rate was increased back to the FY12 level
The contract price being recommended by the Finance and Judiciary Committee was received by the
Committee as a request from the firm. The proposal as made addressed both the lack of consistent hourly rate changes over the past years and viewing market based rates for attorney’s performing similar work.
As part of the market based approach to the request, the firm provided the following explanation (minor
edits for briefing memo inclusion):
It is acknowledged that this request is for a significant amount and view this as not a
cost of living adjustment, but rather a correction to our hourly rate. The current hourly
rate is less than 75% of the normal billing rate for a private client. An issue with having such a low hourly rate is that it has begun to impact the level of legal services that can
be provided to the City. The firm has had a difficult time remaining competitive and
retaining associates as evidenced by the departure of a highly qualified associate in the fall of 2015. With a low hourly rate, we are unable to pay commiserate salaries for
associates. This creates a cycle where we are constantly training new lawyers which may result in inefficiencies but also could subject the City to a higher level of legal risk. In addition, it is critical that we are able to maintain competent support staff to assist the
attorney’s in making sure the office is run in an efficient manner. It is also worth noting that the City has grown in recent years and its goals have become more complex and
ambitious – presenting more sophisticated legal issues and analysis.
Attachment 1 – Page 3 of 3
Staff has worked with the City Attorney’s Office to review comparable rates by other firms and concur that the proposed rates are in line with those charged by other firms, but it is difficult to obtain detail information about rates charged by private businesses. The changes in the recommended contract would
be as follows:
FY17 FY18
Contract Hours 2,124 2,124
Rate Per Hour $199.63 $216.27
Contract Price $424,014 $459,357
RECOMMENDATION The Finance and Judiciary Committee has completed its evaluation of the service is recommending the
following as the key elements of the new contract:
The contract would be for 2 years beginning on July 1, 2016 and expiring on June 30, 2018
The contract price for the first year would increase the hourly rate from $166.36 to $199.63 and increase the retainer for that year from $353,349 to $$424,014.
The second year of the contract would see an hourly rate increase from $199.63 to $2163.27 and
increase the retainer from $424,014 to $459,357.
The estimated retainer hours would remain at 2,124.
While still indicating a highly satisfactory level of service being received by the City from the
firm, it is being asked that the City compete a request for qualifications process prior to the
expiration of the new contract in order complete a due diligence sourcing activity for Springfield citizens
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