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County Counsel recommending the Board consider the following:
1) Adopt Resolution 175-2012 amending the Fiscal Year 2012/2013 adopted personnel resolution adding one Deputy County Counsel and one Legal Secretary I/II to the County Counsel Department; and
2) Approve the attached budget transfer increasing salaries and benefits appropriations in County Counsel by $106,500 and decreasing general fund contingency by the same amount. (4/5 vote required)
Funding: General Fund.
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On Monday, September 17, 2012, the Board of Supervisors heard a presentation from the Public Guardian's office demonstrating that there has been a greatly increased caseload in conservatorship cases in recent years (both probate conservatorships and LPS conservatorships) which is expected to continue into the future. The Board therefore augmented the Public Guardian's personnel allocation substantially in order to allow the Public Guardian to properly handle the increased workload. Since a conservatorship is a legal proceeding, each conservatorship case is eventually referred to County Counsel's office for filing in court, and for subsequent legal proceedings including jury trials where necessary. Augmenting the Public Guardian's staff to allow it to handle more cases would inevitably increase the workload in County Counsel's office.
At the same Board meeting, the County Counsel's Office demonstrated to the Board of Supervisors that each new conservatorship case involved a great deal more work than in the past, so an increase in the number of cases plus the increase in workoad per case means that the County Counsel's current staff also had to be augmented significantly in order to handle the new stream of cases from the Public Guardian. County Counsel requested that its personnel allocation be increased by one Deputy County Counsel and one legal secretary in order to handle the additional work.
The Board decided to defer the augmentation of County Counsel's personnel a...
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