County attorney wants to trim staff, add another deputy

The Hill County attorney told the Hill County Commission Tuesday she wants to eliminate two positions and hire a third deputy county attorney, part of an effort to trim expenses and cut down on a heavy case load in Justice Court.

County Attorney Jessica Cole-Hodgkinson presented the county commissioners with a written proposal during a meeting also attended by District Court staff and several attorneys from law firms within the county.

She said in the proposal that she first asked the commissioners last May about hiring a new deputy county attorney in lieu of a full-time office manager or a part-time personnel clerk.

Under the proposal, Cole-Hodgkinson would be allowed to hire a third county attorney, while the tasks that were assigned to the office manager and the personnel clerk would be added to the work load of current deputy attorneys Stephanie McKnight and Karen Alley.

She said Alley and McKnight are in favor of the proposal.

Deputy attorneys would be asked to type up many of their own documents, something that McKnight said she already does.

Cole-Hodgkinson said that while she can ask deputy attorney’s to perform more of the secretarial tasks, she can’t ask secretaries to perform the tasks performed by attorneys.

She added that that the office has an increased workload in Justice Court.

Two years ago, there were two deputy attorney vacancies in the office, which led to a backlog of cases, she said.

Cole-Hodgkinson said numbers from the Montana Board of Crime Control shows that Hill County also has a higher crime rate than many other Montana counties, and she needs more people to help her tackle the work load.

She said that she, along with McKnight and Alley, are often up at Hill County Justice Court at the same time. One of them goes before the court while the other two sit in the courtroom waiting to argue cases.

Having an extra deputy-attorney, Cole-Hodgkinson said, will also allow the office to better use its resources.

The deputy attorney in the new position, she said, would be focused mostly on duties in Justice Court. McKnight and Alley would then be freed up to spend more time in the office.

Cole-Hodgkinson said the new deputy county attorney position will save the county money.

Based on numbers from 2017-2018, she said, the salary for a personnel clerk was $25,935, including $15,672 in salary and $10,263 in health insurance and benefits, while the cost of an office manager was $63,435, including $41,176 and $22,259 in health insurance and benefits.

Altogether, she said, the two positions as currently budgeted total $89,370.

The new deputy county attorney position, she said, would be less at $79.377, which would include $55,000 in salary and $24,377 in health insurance and benefits.

“So we eliminate half a position’s worth of benefits,” Cole-Hodgkinson said.

She added that deputy attorneys are salaried employees, and so there would be no overtime cost.

Hill County Commission Chair Mark Peterson said the numbers do not take into account the automated pay increases that go into effect after a deputy county attorney has been in place after four years.

Commissioner Diane McLean said that on the fourth year and every year after pay increases kick in, but Cole-Hodgkinson said the office’s longest serving deputy county attorney has just completed her first year.

“So we are three years from that,” Cole-Hodgkinson said.

The move would also reduce the need to train employees for the two existing positions, Cole-Hodgkinson said.

She said the commissioners had told her that they are worried about paying to provide a new person in the county personnel position with several months of training, only to have them then leave shortly thereafter to accept a more lucrative position with another local or city government or in the private sector.

Having an attorney perform the duties of an office manager and personnel clerk, she said, would do away with much of those costs. Attorneys, she said, are already trained in areas such as equal employment law, the Americans with Disabilities Act and Montana’s Wrongful Discharge Act, which will allow them to resolve employment disputes.

Brian Lilletvedt, an attorney with Bosch, Kuhr, Dugdale, Martin and Kaze, said that the problem with retaining employees is the low wages, leading many to take jobs in other Montana cities and counties that pay higher wages.

“Most of the ones who have left have left to go onto higher salary positions either as city attorneys in Billings, Bozeman, or county attorneys,” he said. “So the question is, you are not going to keep someone at 55 and work them an extra 20 or 30 hours a week when they can go to Great Falls and make $75,000,” Lilletvedt said.

Cole-Hodgkinson said the position could be attractive to a “baby attorney” or one just out of law school with less experience. Those attorneys, she said typically start out making an annual salary of $45,000.

The county, she said, would pay the person in the new position $10,000 above that average salary.

Though it is unlikely Hill County can, in the long run, compete with places like Missoula in salary, having a fourth attorney will allow the office to have a better chance of staggering departures,

“So if we have three deputies, I think it is unlikely that all three would come up with new opportunities at the same time and the office would better be able to implement the law,” Cole-Hodgkinson said.

Randy Randolph, a local attorney running against Alley in the Democratic primary in the race for Hill County attorney, said having attorneys perform more secretarial tasks, could create less efficiency.

“I can’t justify running out letters and those sorts of little things that would take me two or three times as long in some cases than it would someone who has secretarial training and a background in typing,” he said.

McKnight said that many attorneys now coming out of law school are using email to communicate or even instant message apps to give updates about cases, rather than typing up a formal letter.

Randolph asked the commissioners if they considered combining the personnel clerk and office manager positions and increase the hourly wage of the person rather than bring on a new deputy attorney.

He said that would save the county a lot of money in the long run,

Sarah Randolph, the wife of Randy Randolph and a paralegal, said that attorneys go to law school to practice law, not do secretarial work. High turnover will continue to be an issue, she said.

“I think if you put an attorney in to do more HR and secretarial work you will have more turnover,” Sarah Randolph said.