Exec. committee approves new contract for county attorney

Taylor County will continue to work with Schmiege, Graff and Koch Law Firm for its county attorney needs, but with some changes to the contract.

The county has contracted with the firm for about 12 years. Attorney Courtney Graff presented the annual contract revision to the county’s executive committee on Tuesday asking for no base rate increase, but rather some contract language changes which adjusts how costs are covered between the county and the law firm. These changes deal with hiring of outside attorneys if there is a conflict of interest and with the cost of attending out of town meetings and conferences, According to Graff, in the past she would be asked to attend conferences and trainings for things like the human services or child support departments. She said she had always paid for the conference registration, lodging and expenses out of her own pocket rather than passing these costs on to the county.

She asked that the county begin covering registration fees, lodging and mileage for attending conferences as well as a paying a per diem. She noted that when she is at conferences or out of town meetings on behalf of the county she is unable to work with other clients or on other cases which ends up costing her firm.

The other change she asked for was to remove the contract language that requires her firm to reimburse the county for up to $1,500 of outside attorney time if an outside attorney is needed due to a conflict with her firm.

Graff said this language was put into the contract under former human resources director Marie Koerner in order for the firm to have “skin in the game.” She said it comes from the perspective that it is the firm’s fault if they have a conflict. She noted that one of the benefits of her firm contracting with the county for legal services is that they can do other work as well.

“Our representation of the county also excludes us from a lot of work,” Graff said.

This became an issue in the past year with two cases where outside attorneys had to take over cases due to conflicts. She said they negotiated with the attorneys to do the work at the contracted rate for the county, which is about $100 less per hour than the current going rate for private attorneys.

Executive committee members approved the changes and sent it to the budget committee to be included as part of the budget.

In other budget action, committee members reviewed and gave their approval to the child support budget. The executive committee serves as the oversight committee for that office.

As has become routine for the department, agency administrator Michelle Kurth reported that the county received a federal Certificate of Excellence Award for fiscal year 2023 for demonstrated excellence in all four performance measures including maternity establishment, court order establishment, current support collection and arrears case reduction.

The child support agency in 2023 had $1,311.77 from the local levy on a total budget of about $290,000. By earning the excellence recognitions, the county is able to maximize the amount of reimbursement aids received.

For the 2025 budget Kurth is proposing an office budget of $298,108 with expected reimbursement of $271,087, which will leave about $23,848 for the local tax levy. She noted that when she uses the funding spreadsheet provided by the state government, the difference becomes only about $1,700 going to the local levy. She said her amount represented a worst case scenario. Committee member Scott Mildbrand noted that if the money is not spent it just stays in the general fund. “If it doesn’t get spent, it doesn’t get spent,” he said.

Committee members approved the budget as presented and forwarded it to the county’s budget writing committee.