Thinly Veiled Attack? Or Excuse?

The discussion of outsourcing professional services was the topic of the committee of the whole meeting of the DeKalb city council. Staff was seeking the council’s direction on two options for the consideration of outsourcing some or all of City legal services. Debate centered on role and definition of potential conflict-of-interest issues.

Ron Naylor (ward 5) believes that conflict-of-interest concerns an outside legal firm who is bound to have clients additional to the City. He bases his position on his experience as a former employee of the City.

Dave Baker (ward 6) is more concerned with potential conflict-of-interest issues within the current relationship between the City Manager and the Legal Department.  In the existing system the City Attorney is a full time employee under the supervision of the City Manager.

During the discussion Baker asked other council members a 20/20 hindsight question — if knowing what the council knows now about unemployment laws — would they still have approved the $1.1 million Voluntary Separation Program? (Which was borrowed money meaning they rolled the expense of the VSP program into debt bond refinancing.)

That brought a response from Bertrand Simpson (ward 1) and Ron Naylor, with agreement from Mayor Kris Povlsen, that Baker– and perhaps Pam Verbic (ward 3) and Lisa Kammes (ward 7) — were masking their concerns on potential conflict-of-interest with in-house legal services in a thinly veiled attack on staff.

Really? Well, only the informed readers of City Barbs would know that the City of DeKalb fully reimbursed the Illinois Department of Employment Security some $90,000 in FY2011 due to a mistake with an unanticipated cost that will approach $200,000 by the time the payments are done.

Council members eventually directed staff to pursue their recommended course and get request for proposals from outside legal firms for some of the City’s legal services. There was no explanation offered about the RIF/self-insured-borrowed-money-unemployment-compensation issue.

Here’s some unsolicited and perhaps unwanted advice:

• The city attorney should report and expenses be charged to the Legislative Department under the supervision of the mayor. Staff is not the City of DeKalb. Its residents and taxpayers are.

• As the city council struggles with making both ends of a fiscal budget meet they will be called upon to prioritize the roles of government services. Roles that require the skills of a clerk, like the liquor commission for example, should not be done by an attorney. A clerk is cheaper than an attorney.

• Speaking of and for residents and taxpayers it is not attacking staff to hold the paid administrators publicly accountable for the business of the city. That’s why they get paid the big bucks. This may sound callous but if they think they’re not being paid enough to be questioned encourage them to put in their notice and let us know how the job market is working out for them.

Mark Biernacki bristled a bit with Baker’s comments but he kept reminding the city council that it was their direction to give. It makes an interested observer wonder what’s going on behind those closed door sessions. To build trust and all the evidence suggest that is sorely needed its best if all things remain open and on the table for discussion.