IS IT TRUE? September 27, 2011 Special Mid Morning Edition

IS IT TRUE? September 27, 2011 Special Mid Morning Edition

IS IT TRUE that the last 24 hours in Evansville have been a period of significant learning and a time to start to truly start considering the ramifications of the 2012 election when the Pontious Pilate Resolution (consolidation) will go to referendum?…that a perfect opportunity to do something differently to save a significant sum of money was exposed last night when City Councilman Dan McGinn and City Controller Jenny Collins struggled to admit that it was essentially impossible to estimate the amount of legal services with sufficient accuracy to make this a line item in the budget?…that the services of interest that are difficult to predict are billable hours for an attorney at $150 per hour and to a paralegal at $95 per hour?…that it was stated by Councilman McGinn that the billings under this contract seem to amount to $30,000 per month?

IS IT TRUE that at those hourly rates that it would take 122.5 hours per month to run up a bill for $30,000?…that an entire month at 40 hours per week averages 173.3 hours?…that an attorney and a paralegal are already utilized through an hourly arrangement at 71% of all time available?…that the City of Evansville should consider just hiring another attorney and a paralegal at the going rates in Evansville of about $65,000 for the attorney (as per a line item in the city budget) and $40,000 for a paralegal?…that these two salaries even burdened with a 35% premium for benefits would only cost the taxpayers $141,750?…that at $30,000 per month we are currently paying $360,000 per year for these same services and may be held over a barrel for additional money if the work load increases?…that hiring two people into full time jobs to handle the liability and workers comp claims would save the City of Evansville 61% ($218,250) just on labor and benefits?…that the City may also save additionally in the office rent and support staff contracts but that we will go with 61% as an adequate amount?

IS IT TRUE that doing the analysis of what is best to be hired and what is best to be contracted should have been one of the things that the consolidation committee did?…that if the consolidation committee would have identified 61% savings in multiple line items that last night’s vote would not be heading to a referendum with organized opposition?…that we could not wait to vote for consolidation if real and tangible value would have been shown to us?

IS IT TRUE that the City of Evansville routinely has line items in the budget for gas electricity bills that are literally as difficult to predict as the weather?…that the City of Evansville routinely has line items in the budget for overtime pay for public safety employees?…that being able to predict the amount of overtime needed for public safety employees is about as difficult as predicting the crimes and fires along with their locations 18 months in advance?…that the CCO would expect that there are plenty more line items that are variable by more than the variation in worker’s comp claims and legal liability needs?…that just rolling over and accepting the fact that you can’t predict whether a lawyer will bill you for 1,500 hours or 2,000 hours a year while pretending to predict utility bills and crime is quite disingenuous?…that the best way to save money and make this a line item is to hire two people as described above because even if the load increases there is a 50 hour per month margin left to fill?…that if the City of Evansville does this that this will be predictable and an appropriate line item in the budget?

IS IT TRUE that there is a classic lawyer joke about billable hours that we would like to share?…that a 65 year old attorney died suddenly of a heart attack and found himself standing before St. Peter for his judgment?…that this attorney was welcomed into the pearly gates and was taken on his orientation tour?…that he saw a small ramshackle house and asked St. Peter who lived there?…that the resident was Gandhi?…that they continued walking and came upon a home in a typical working class neighborhood?…that St. Peter told the attorney that this was the home of Mother Theresa?…that the attorney was beginning to worry about the kind of box that he may be living in with Gandhi in a scrap house and Mother Theresa in a modest home?…that they rounded a corner and saw a shining mansion on a hill and that the attorney asked if that was God’s house?…that St. Peter advised the attorney that the mansion was prepared for him and that he is special as the oldest man to ever walk the earth?…that the attorney realizing that heaven is not the place for lies corrected St. Peter and told him he was only 65 when he died?…that St. Peter responded that the Heaven Housing Authority had only used the attorneys billing records to determine that he had lived to be 1,000 years old?…that is why in Heaven they hire their attorneys as opposed to giving them a blank purchase order for billing to?