| Legal Department |
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| Mission Statement
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| To be the model public service law firm and provide high-quality legal services to our clients and customers in a manner that is ethical, timely, and responsive. |
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| Trends, Issues, and Opportunities |
 | The Trial Court Administration drives Legal's resource allocation by the number of court appearances that it sets. The office is obligated to meet the Court's mandatory time frames and appearances. As criminal caseloads have continued to grow, the Court has added additional courtrooms and explored other ways to handle certain types of cases, including felony Drug Court and the new Family Violence Court which hears both civil and misdemeanor cases that are related to domestic violence. Unfortunately, often Legal's staff hours are dedicated to its criminal responsibilities at the expense of some civil assignments, and various Departments have commented on their need for more civil time from the attorneys. |
| As other City Departments grow and change, Legal's workload is impacted as well. When more police officers are hired, when the Council annexes land and/or purchases, when the City pursues judicial confirmations and reviews - all of these impact the office workload and affect staffing availability. |
| Legal does have the ability to contract out areas of civil litigation when the office lacks the expertise or when its workload would be negatively impacted; however, outside contracts ultimately are more costly and provide the City with less direct control in the outcome. |
| Legal must continue to balance its criminal and civil responsibilities and assign its resources as best it can. The office carefully assesses all civil litigation cases to determine not only whether the expertise exists internally, but also how the overall office workload might be affected. There may come a time when the office will be unable to continue to provide the same high-quality, responsive legal services to all of its various civil customers. Then, Legal will be forced to evaluate its legal responsibility for staffing various boards, committees, and other projects. |
| The contract with Meridian has enabled Legal to increase its resources at no cost to Boise and to provide additional court coverage that had not been funded previously. One goal is to ensure that Boise taxpayers do not fund the services to Meridian. |
| Legal is not requesting any additional permanent positions beyond its current FTE count; however, the Department may request additional (or continued) non-regular positions if the Meridian contract extends beyond October 1, 2003. Only if Legal is asked to take on additional duties/responsibilities, especially related to Court coverage, will the Department be forced to seek any additional funding from the City. Currently, we are considering joining forces with Ada County to implement a Fast-Track Domestic Violence Program. This program may require additional human resource funding. |
| In another effort to better utilize existing resources rather than continue to ask for more staff, Legal has pursued numerous technological projects in the past few years. The office has tested laptops in the courthouse, imaged and scanned documents electronically in place of paper files, and utilized cell phones to communicate between the courthouse and the office. Most recently, Legal used a pilot project to examine and review its criminal screening process. It quickly confirmed that an automated case management system is required for process improvement purposes. The scope of this project is huge, particularly with Legal's desire to have the system integrated with file management, the AS400, police reports, audio/video samples, and web-based access. The Department expects the process of developing/acquiring/implementing a case management system could take as long as a year and a half, and the cost may be substantial. Legal had been rolling forward its Penalty Court Overtime savings for this type of system and hopes that the City will permit the one-time expense associated with the project when the time is right. |
| In recognition of projected budget shortages as well as the time frame estimated for a project of this magnitude, Legal will be pursuing certain programming changes to the existing file management system to facilitate and assist in managing until a full-blown case management system is in place. Legal had designed and implemented a new database tracking system to monitor and track paperwork related to both Meridian and Kuna, and hopes that this new system can be expanded to include Boise cases and linked to the office's existing file management system. Legal hopes to begin this interim step before FY-04. However, since the City is looking at information technology issues more globally, even this might need to be prioritized among the City's other IT projects. |
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| Two-Year Budget Highlights |
| Legal will need to meet the continued civil customer demand and increased criminal prosecution appearances with the same budget and staffing level. |
| Legal will need to continue its automation and quality assurance efforts to make process improvements and perform more and better work with the same budget and staffing level. |
| Legal will need to improve its reporting to its customers and Client to ensure that they are fully briefed and have the best and most current information on which to make policy decisions. |
| Legal will need to retain its qualified staff and quickly recruit to replace any turnover with similarly or better qualified candidates. |
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| Accomplishments |
| Legal contracted with the City of Meridian to provide prosecution and legal criminal support, with expected revenue of $139,369:
- Assigned an Attorney II to provide on-site assistance to MPD 2 days/week;
- Hired 1.5 non-regular Attorney Is to assist with additional court coverage;
- Hired a part-time, non-regular Victim/Witness Coordinator to supplement victim services for both Boise and Meridian;
- Hired a part-time, non-regular Juvenile Accountability program coordinator to begin providing JA diversion services in Meridian;
- Hired a part-time, non-regular Legal Secretary to supplement secretarial services. |
| Utilizing the above-mentioned resources associated with the Meridian contract, Legal began covering the new Family Violence Court without seeking additional City funding or staffing. As a result of the new program, Legal now covers a total of seven courtrooms each day. |
| Legal also contracted with Kuna City to provide prosecutorial services for several months. As part of the $2,500 contract, the office developed a database program to provide statistical data to assist Kuna and Ada County in assessing the workload accurately for their contract negotiations. This database program could be enhanced and improved to provide similar data for Boise City as well. |
| Legal is reassessing its relationship with both internal and external customers and making changes based on input from staff at all levels in the City. |
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| Human
Resource Summary |
2002 |
2003 |
2004 |
2005 |
| Actuals |
Revised |
Base |
Base |
| Administrative Support | 18.02 | 17.48 | 17.48 | 17.48 | | Department Heads | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | | Division Managers | 5.00 | 5.00 | 5.00 | 5.00 | | First Line Supervisor | 2.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 1.00 | | Professional | 19.00 | 20.48 | 20.48 | 20.48 | | Technical Specialist | 3.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Total |
48.02 |
44.96 |
44.96 |
44.96 |
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