Culver City Spends More On Legal Services Than All But 5 Cities in LA County

Gary Silbiger

According to information obtained by the Los Angeles Times through a Public Records Act request collected from the 88 cities in Los Angeles County, Culver City is high on the list of spending for City Attorney costs.  Some of this detailed information can be found at http://www.latimes.com/cityattorneyspending while other facts were received by the Times, but not posted on that website.

Of the 88 cities in Los Angeles County, Culver City, at $4,143,319, has the sixth largest annual legal services costs, which includes both expenses for City Attorney employees and outside legal firms.  Only Los Angeles, Long Beach, Vernon, Santa Monica, Burbank, and Hawthorne spent more money on legal services costs than Culver City.  However, Los Angeles has almost 100 times Culver City’s population, Long Beach has 12 times, and Santa Monica, Burbank, and Hawthorne have twice Culver City’s population.  Tiny Vernon has suffered severe corruption which probably caused the high legal expenses.  Other than Vernon, Culver City is the only small city in the County that spends such large amounts on legal fees.

Compared to the other 87 cities in Los Angeles County, Culver City has the twelfth largest percent of its budget, 3%, spent on legal expenses, including both in-house City Attorney and outside contracted legal costs.  Only Signal Hill, Hawthorne, Bradbury, Hermosa Beach, Vernon, La Habra Heights, Rancho Palos Verdes, Sierra Madre, Compton, Rolling Hills, and Artesia spend a higher percentage of its budget on attorney fees than does Culver City.  When a higher percentage of the budget goes to legal costs, other needed programs are denied sufficient funds, rejected, or  disbanded.

Comparing the annual amount of City Attorney costs (both in-house and outside contracts) to its population, Culver City, at $88 per person, is ranked sixth in per capita expenditure after Vernon, City of Industry, Irwindale, Signal Hill, and Santa Monica.

Small town Culver City, consisting of less than 40,000 residents, spends an unusually high amount for legal services when compared to other Los Angeles County cities.  In fact all 3 indicators explained above – total legal costs, percentage of legal costs as part of its budget, and per capita costs – find Culver City ranked 6, 6, and 12.  Is this tremendously expensive legal cost caused by overpayment of the City Attorney employees, the large payments of outside legal consultants, the duplication of responsibilities between in-house and outside legal assistance, the overuse of outside legal assistance, and/or the lax financial oversight of legal costs?

Looking at the last six fiscal years of the City Attorney’s office of Culver City, it shows a steady increase in expenses from the $1,137,670 for fiscal year 2005-2006 to $1,694,124 for fiscal year 2009-2010, although only one employee, a deputy city attorney II position was added in 2009-2010.   With the financial crisis lingering, the City Attorney’s office cut a deputy city attorney I, senior manager analyst, and legal secretary for the past 2010-2011 fiscal year and decreased its expenses to $1,401,429.  Who will fill the work accomplished by these 3 missing employees – the outside legal consultants, employees in other City departments, or by others paid overtime?  If these 3 positions are essential to the operation of the City Attorney’s office, will it justify having more outside law offices performing much more of the required work?   Even this fiscal year, though, showed a $1,401,429 total of expenses in the City Attorney’s office, which includes salaries, and some minor office expenses.  By subtracting an approximation of $100,000 for miscellaneous expenses (the City did not give an amount for these items perhaps because it was not asked) such as investigators, legal research computer services, mediation, subscriptions, and messenger and filing services, from the total amount, the 7 City Attorney office staff would earn an average of about $185,700 including benefits.  Of course, the attorneys, especially the City Attorney and Assistant City Attorney, make significantly more than the other employees.  Yet, this is a large amount of money spent for a 4 attorney office. 

Outside legal firms have cost Culver City an average of more than 2,000,000 per year for the past 6 fiscal years, including the current one.  Outside City legal costs and the outside Redevelopment Agency costs are similar in total expenses. 

The law firm of Kane Ballmer and Berkman, of which Murray Kane is the Culver City Redevelopment Agency counsel, took the largest share of the profitable legal fees, earning both a huge amount from the Redevelopment Agency and a small amount from the City.  For the past 6 fiscal years, Kane Ballmer and Berkman took away more than a half million dollars per year from the Redevelopment Agency – not a bad salary for an attorney. 

Greenberg Glusker Fields Claman and Mach, the law office representing the City in its PXP oil drilling law suits, averaged about $300,000 per year in legal fees after deducting the $710,000 reimbursement in settlement of these PXP lawsuits.

But it’s not only the Redevelopment Agency’s attorney and the PXP Oil lawsuit law firm that received handsome payments from the struggling city of Culver City.  The highest yearly payments by Culver City include: the law firm of Liebert & Cassady who were paid $609,000 one year, McCune & Harber who took in $511,000 in legal fees in a single year, Carpenter and Rothans who were paid $268,000 one year, and Fox & Sohagi who took in $186,000 in just one year.  All of these law offices have attorneys working part time for the City or Redevelopment Agency.  Yet when we study the amount paid for the work it seems like the whole law office was on a full-time retainer from the City.

The final group of outside attorneys used by Culver City are the 6 law firms that represent the City in workers compensation matters.  The 2010-2011 fiscal year demonstrates that Culver City paid a total of $185,732 to those 6 law offices, down a bit for the previous 5 fiscal years.

Now is the time for the City Council to evaluate its City Attorney’s office to determine its role and goals.  Some suggestions include:

     1.  Evaluation of how many attorneys and other staff is best for the City Attorney’s office and what type of work should they perform. 

     2.  Compare the City Attorney’s office in Culver City with ones from similarly sized ones in Los Angeles County.

     3.  What areas of law are handled in-house and what other kinds of work, if any, should they practice?  Are there other areas of law that the current staff can do?  Is it worthwhile to hire other city attorneys who can specialize in areas currently handled by outside counsel?

     4.  At the same time, a close look at outside counsel should be performed to determine a bidding process for the services of the dozens of law firms.  Is Culver City’s rate for outside counsel fair and consistent with other cities’?  How often should bidding for outside attorneys be performed?

     5.  Are the invoices from each law firm closely reviewed by City staff and City auditors and what do they look for?

Generally, everyone likes to finish in the top 10; but when the top 10 means the most expensive, it is fiscally sound to both audit and thoroughly review all funds.  After all, additional money is greatly needed, now more than ever, and must be carefully prioritized to services that help our residents, not exhorbitant salaries.

Gary Silbiger is the Co-Editor of the Culver City Progress Blog and the Former Mayor of Culver City.