Providence Committee on Finance-Wednesday, June 5, 2024-5:30 PM

Good evening. My name is Ellen Anthony. I'm the chair of the committee in finance. I'm calling to order a regular meeting Thank you so much, and I would like to recognize to the solicitor's office. Thank you so much for coming.

We've got... Who else? We're at Aaron, mister Gardner. We've got Janet Rose, and our wonderful flirts And, of course, we met the May team from the finance department. Welcome, and we are distinguished guests..

With that, I'm going to ask for a motion to read or read items one through the agenda? I'm sorry. Two. I'm sorry. Do we have the...

Mister Meyer here? I don't believe I see him again. Do you know him? Mhmm. What What else?

Else? The The wrong wrong line line is. Of. It's... Don't worry.

Yeah. Right.

So what I'm gonna ask is I'm watching a way to reading about agenda item one, and, also, we're a motion to continue indefinitely so that you can deny without prejudice. I'm sorry. Deny without prejudice in the motion. It's a hold. Second.

Right? Files by May I have a motion to waive the readings of items two through five. So Second. Motion has been made by councilor in the. All in favor?

Aye.

All

opposed. Okay. So here we go. We are going to start with the law department. So the...

For some... So this is gonna come to the table and just snoring. You might appreciate it. I'd like to mark this as exhibit 32. 32.

May I have a vote? Second. Motion made by the councilor Handelbaugh, seconded by councilor Sanchez. All in favor? Aye.

All opposed? I would like to recognize for joining us this evening.. Okay. So will the city solicitor... I'm sorry.

We're doing... Who's?

Madam chair, it's... Typically, we

will follow the same format. Ms. Will read it right in the summary, and then I have a question for the finance team. And then we'll go forward to the ready and solicitor. So you.

First up tonight, we have the law department. Revenue in this department is budgeted at $25,000 consistent with this '24 budget. Moving on to expenditures. Total salaries, principal 25. Our proposed stat $3,371,858, an increase of $339,978.

The department has had some organizational shifts in '20... Fiscal year twenty four, which resulted in a decrease in payroll reimbursement for the deputy solicitor that used to be partially funded by the school department. This position is fully funded in the general fund through fiscal twenty five. Total benefits from fiscal twenty five are proposed at $1,505,012, a decrease of $243,229. Moving on to services.

Total services for fiscal twenty five are proposed at $2,597,700, a decrease of $246,400 from the '24 budget. And the decrease is primarily due to a reduction in private contractors' expense, and there's a modest increase in the training and hosted line items. Total supplies for fiscal twenty five are proposed at $541,182 with an increase of $32,318, and this change is due to increases in rent at the 4444 Westminster Street and property in each of these payments. There's no capital budget in this department.. Solicitor, I think we are going to hear your presentation.

Just

on behalf of the the lawyers and nonlawyers of the lawyer problem, we very much appreciate the privilege that we have to work with the city of problems as our clients. It's very... Often very demanding and challenging work, but never boring and very fulfilling work at.

Okay. Thank you. I am... So you're... You've given us organizational chart.

Can you kind of explain to us how you organize this just so

we can get our our variance? Sure. So there are... There is between myself as the solicitor.

There are three deputy city solicitors. And I guess in terms of... Rather than going through every single one. So the organization is is based on going from the two deputies, to the senior, to the associate, to the assistant, and then the non attorney support staff. And in the boxes are listed here.

The offices and departments in the city that they typically service, handle... Every single city department has legal issues. And so so we will work for the different departments. And, yes, to the best of our abilities, divvy up among different terms so that we can kinda focus on a few substantive areas. We're also, as we know, under charter, required to be present and represent every city board and commission as well as every single city council committee.

So the council committees and board and commissions that the various constituent city solicitors are assigned to are also listed in the box boxes. So pretty much the various substantive assignments are what are listed under each

Would you just give us a little bit of a breakdown or a little bit of background so I see that I know the deputy senior assistance and then associates? Mhmm.. Give us how a little idea of how... What the experience is in each of the categories and how the salaries compare to salaries outside of the city? Sure.

So it's it's... As far as the years of experience, it's not... We're not, like, completely rigid, but, typically, the deputy city solicitors are your most experienced. And then... And our deputy city solicitors all have roughly twenty plus years of experience at the joint.

And the senior assistants range anywhere from ten to twenty plus years of experience. And the associates the associates and the solicitors have, really, anywhere from five to fifteen or thirty years of experience. And then the assistance that is sold to their positions are generated for folks. As far as the salaries, I mean, it's an ongoing battle for us because the the legal labor market and the... And particularly challenging for employers.

We never expect to actually match what the salary ranges are in the private sector. Never have. We don't expect we ever will. That's that's not an area in which we even try. We we think there are other reasons why it's a...

It's an excellent department for a lawyer to to work at, and it's not gonna be for a salary that compares to what they can from the child's salary. We do seem to be falling a little behind the state. The state of Rhode Island, it's certainly where it defines the salary ranges that municipalities are getting to lawyers in our neighboring states.

So we're not

we're not in an ideal range in terms of what our our salaries are in terms of competitiveness for public sector returns. But where the the city... The salary ranges for city lawyers in have been worse in the past. So we're we're at least trying to catch up to the public sector.

Madam, I just jump in to to expand upon what Jeff is saying? Of course. So when I started with the city, some twenty plus years ago, although maybe the the salaries weren't competitive or on that par with outside firms or or outside agencies, but the benefits in the pension plan was a a great attraction, not so anymore. So a lot of attorneys, even with the generous benefit package that's provided by the city, is not attractive for someone to just come to work for the city. It's it's also, as Jeff points out, it's salary.

That's a big driver. And and, you know, a lot of people in this market don't even wanna come into the office. They wanna work remotely. So that's another challenging Sure. Problem.

I mean, especially when we have committees and, you know, our clients are are live and and in person. And the other thing that Jeff just explained about, yes, we represent the departments. We also represent, as you know, the retirement board. So a lot of the boards and commissions, board of licenses, board of canisters require... Will litigate matters.

So I'm familiar with, obviously, the board of license... Board of canisters as well as the retirement board because we will have cases at the supreme court or superior court up or up at the state board of elections because those are two of the the places that I I deal with. And and what Jeff has instilled upon this more senior attorneys is to engage the younger attorneys. And you all know at the retirement board that I bring an assistant city solicitor with me in a litigation matter, So they will eventually transition into the role to be the head of head attorney like myself at the retirement board or the board of canvases. So that's something that Jeff has instilled upon us to in...

Engage these attorneys so they get the experience, and they can move on and transition as people move.

Thank you, Graham. Yeah. Important important points. I think all in all, notwithstanding the challenges with our salary structure, we've done a fairly good job with retention. I mean, we try to try to make it a a place that is a positive place for lawyers to work and develop professionally.

And it is very much a full time full time plus job to do things. So the... They put

a lot of hours in,

and we have a very, very dedicated team of professionals. And and I include the attorneys and the non attorney staff who are very dedicated and spend a lot of time.

Okay. And and I will ask one more question and turn it over. You're in vacant positions. Can you talk about those and how long they've been vacant? Sure.

So we have a one paralegal position that's been that has been vacant for several months, I believe. And we have a few attorney positions that are vacant. We have been in the process of interviewing and recruiting. And I think, you know, if if... That actually brings up another point to to follow-up with with what as far as the challenge with some of benefits aren't quite as favorable as they were with folks who were higher, it could be twenty years ago, is that a lot of folks coming out of law school right now are saddled with lots of.

So... Because we we try to aggressively move. We don't just post we don't just post our job this thing we... Locally. We post it nationally.

I reach out personally to career services offices from Washington all the way up the post. I've been involved with some multicultural law student association mentor. Other members of the team are as well. We we are getting fewer applicants than we used to. And when I reach out to the career services and and DEI officials in in the various law schools, I keep hearing the same thing.

If students are coming out with so much debt that the salaries we're listing as available are not enough. They just... They... Even for folks that are targeting public sector work, public service, public interest, They're just not enough. That's that's, I think, the the cause of lengthier vacancies than we've had in the past.

We're not just gonna hire anybody. So we... We're very thorough and thoughtful in our review process for that. It's worth trying really hard with our.