MASON CITY – Documents obtained by NorthIowaToday.com show that the elimination of the city attorney position at City Hall has not saved the city money.
Former Mason City city attorney Tom Meyer resigned from the position at Mason City on September 2nd, 2011. He filled the role of completing many of the city’s legal tasks as well as human resources tasks. After Meyer resigned as city attorney, the position was eliminated and all legal work was out-sourced to two local attorneys and a Des Moines law firm.
Meyer’s salary when he left was about $110,000.
City Administrator Brent Trout claimed the elimination of the city attorney position would save the city money. According to figures and documents obtained by NIT, this does not seem to be the case.
To date in fiscal year 2012-2013:
– The city has paid about $73,000 to Ahler’s Law Firm in Des Moines for completing a range of legal services for the city. Invoices shown to NIT list nearly every phone call made to Ahlers Law Firm by city staff is billed and added to a running total for each case or project Ahlers undertakes for the city.
– The city also hired two attorneys to work part-time to fill other needs. The city has paid Mark Young $17,106.00 and Randy Nielson $55,518.65.
After Meyer left Mason City and took a job in Cedar Falls at City Hall as city attorney, Mason City hired a human resources director, Perry Buffington, who is paid $74,880 per year plus health, vacation, IPERS and sick leave.
Combining the total costs of the legal fees paid by the city so far in fiscal year 2012-2013 as well as the salary for the human resources director (a total of about $220,500 versus the $110,000 Meyer was paid) the city is now paying about double what it paid before it lost Meyer.
Both Meyer and Buffington had assistants to help them with their job duties.
Meyer is no longer employed by the City of Cedar Falls. Sources say he is back in Mason City looking to open a private practice.
Below are photographs of invoices from Ahlers Law Firm in Des Moines for the City of Mason City. The fees cover a range of legal services from writing city code, to employment issues, to economic deals. Taxpayers pick up the entire tab of legal fees related to economic deals between businesses and the city.
Paid to Ahlers Law Firm in Des Moines for legal fees regarding an urban revitalization plan
Paid to Ahlers Law Firm in Des Moines to consult on employment issues
Paid to Ahlers Law Firm in Des Moines for legal fees relating to an amendment to a unified plan
Paid to Ahlers Law Firm in Des Moines for legal fees relating to economic deals for two local businesses, Metalcraft and NIP Fitness.
THE HIDDEN COST TO MASON CITY TAXPAYERS FOR “ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT”
Paid to Ahlers Law Firm in Des Moines for more work on an urban revitalization plan
Paid to Ahlers Law Firm in Des Moines for legal work on the Harley-Davidson economic deal.
Harley got a $100,000 forgivable loan (free money from taxpayers), an alley and more. Taxpayers also paid all the legal expenses.
THE HIDDEN COST TO MASON CITY TAXPAYERS FOR “ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT”
Someone who wants to get hired for the a full-time position as city attorney? I thought Mark Young WAS the full time city attorney.
Great job of investigating, once again. Couldn’t have been easy to get those invoices, Matt. We’re depending on you for this. Seem to be the only one uncovering the truth anymore. I’ll be eagerly waiting your next article.
Wait
To answer your question. Meter was not the sole attorney for the city when he was the city attorney. The city outsourced services all the time for various things that were outside Meyers area of expertise. Good reporting would have revealed that. Marquardt either want people to know that or he has so much hatred he can’t see straight. That is why the sheep flock to him aka Sandra servantez because they believe what they hear and can’t formulate an opinion bases on fact. Marquardt does this intentionally because he wants the hits and to also stir the pot. Real reporting based om fact is not needed on this site. That is why the articles are op eds opinion based with half truths and muck raking. Matt if you want to do real reporting find out was paid to other lawyers when Meyers was city attorney. The truth is you won’t see a follow up story like so many others because Marquardt doesn’t want you to know the whole truth. Matt feel free to reply.
What’s to follow up on? You seem to know a lot, who are you? Why not state your name and legitimately enter this conversation? The point of the story is that the city is paying a king’s ransom to a DM law firm and none of the changes made at city hall are doing a lick of good. Very likely costing us more. I never wrote that Meyer did all the legal work. The other point was to prove that the people of MC are getting the shaft on these so-called economic deals. No new jobs to speak of and the rich get handouts that I now proved include all the legal fees paid by the taxpayers so that the taxpayers can then hand out forgivable loans, land and other freebies. Pretty sad you are defending that. Have any guts to come clean? By the way, who is “Meter” ?
I used my real name, can you respond to my questions please.
I am not a sheep thank you very much. I do my homework and I am not just talking about this article. I ask you why is the city paying to move the statue out of the flower garden that Anderson tore up? It should be the chamber paying for it not tax dollars or better yet maybe Robin should pay it out of her own pocket
“If” there was a silver lining in all this, at least Ahlers could be considered a neutral party to business as usual in MC.
I have two honest questions. First, what does hiring a human resources director have to do with eliminating the city attorney position? Why is that included in the 220,000? Lastly, was Meyer responsible for all the legal work when he was here or was some work contracted out then as well? If they used private practice lawyers when he was still working here then the 110,000 needs to be amended. I guess that’s three questions.
Meyer held both the City Attorney and Human Resource Role. Heck, for a while he was also acting City Administrator…Cost savings?
Sure. Meyer took on the human resources duties. When he left, the city had to cover those duties with a newly hired person. So in addition to handling (a lot) of the city’s legal duties, Meyer was the human resources director; two jobs in one. Now we are paying for a new hire to do human resources and 2 part time attorneys and Ahlers to cover legal. Yes the city has always used some outside legal help as well when needed even when Meyer was here. Getting all the invoices and data from years past would a major undertaking; where is Tim Moermann and other former city officials to answer those detailed questions? I am pointing out that the city is not better off and quite possibly worse off financially since eliminating the city attorney position since that position also handled human resources (and sometimes city administrator duties, even though it wasn’t written in the story). It is a topic worthy of debate and good for the community to discuss.
Thanks for the response. The HR director reference now makes sense but it doesn’t seem fair to include the outsource fees from now but not before Meyer left. I know they may be difficult to locate, yet a simple statement like, “Expenditures on contracted legal services during Meyer’s tenure were unable to be obtained.” Perhaps would have made things a little more clear.
From Matt’s perspective, they aren’t difficult to locate at all. He simply needs to make a request for what he is looking for and the City has to do the work of searching out the records and providing them within 30 days.
Waste of our money and just another failure of Brent Trout as city administrator. Why would anyone be surprised by Trout not knowing what he was talking about when he hired a person for HR and outsourced legal.
The city used other attorneys during Tom Meyer’s employment that they had to pay in addition to his salary. If you are making comparisons, you should be comparing apples to apples
I can remember when people would talk about how embrassing the city council use to be when Max was on the council. I think what is going on now is a whole lot more embrassing! I think everyone on the council plus the mayor would be embarrassed how things have turned out in the past 3 years. I must agree with who ever said not one of them is a leader.
I said it.
Why don’t we just have Ahlers run the city, and skip city hall altogether! Might be cheaper!
Because they won’t do what Robin Anderson says.
I just fell off my chair laughing so hard. Outstanding point! You win the white carnation!
Spending tax money like this is exactly what I alluded to awhile back, when I commented on the monthly payouts that the city makes, which is printed in the local rag. I’d be surprised if there wasn’t things hidden in those payouts that us tax payers shouldn’t know about.
Here is my observation of the culture at city hall. This is Trout, Bookmeyer and all 6 council members:
They grandstand on eliminating (HR) or scrutinizing (sanitation) certain departments or functions of government. They do this to look good and protect themselves.
Meanwhile, they blow through thousands and thousands for their pet projects. They feel they can do this because they have about a $50 million budget and who is going to argue with $10,000 here or $45,000 there (sculptures). “It’s such a small %” of the whole budget, they say.
To me – and I know this from running a small business, a rental property and my own household – the little things add up very, very quickly … and by wasting money in this way, the culture at City Hall has become one of waste. They allow the “little things” to continue unchecked and even add to them.
Bookmeyer is mainly to blame for this as his vendetta against anyone and everyone employed at City Hall has lead to this “lean” program of fewer people working for City Hall. If he had it his way, no one would work at City Hall except himself and Trout and they would write checks to outside companies to do everything. We have seen the proof of this (eliminate sanitation, outsource HR to DM, yet gives blank checkbook to Robin Anderson).
The council is complicit in this as they have allowed Bookmeyer to run wild and become a tyrant. All 6 council members share equal blame; none of them are leaders.
Fiscal conservatives often claim outsourcing work saves money. The outsourcing of “legal work” shows that is not always the case. There are 7 attorneys in the county attorney’s office and none of them work 40 hours a weeks. They do not start work at 8 and leave at 4:30. You often see that red head walking around town at all hours of the day. Dalen does not seem to care as long as he can come and go as he pleases and collect his salary.
The highest paid employees at the courthouse (judges and attorneys) are the last in to work and the first to leave.
Spend a little time in the courthouse lobby and you can see a pattern.
The problem is that no one is ever rewarded for saving money in government. An owner of a business has an interest to keep expenses down. We need to change the system in some way to reward government for saving money. There must be an incentive system of some kind put in place.
Matt, I am furious about this!! This may be one of your top stories to date.!!
Why are they outsourcing to Ahlers when they also have Nielsen. HE IS the City Attorney, shouldn’t he be doing the work? And Mark Young? Really? $17,000?!!!!!! That’s more than he has made his entire cateer and he’s making that much money doing only municipal charges. How do you rack up those types of charges doing dog at large cases and noise ordinance cases? Hey MATT, you should look into the County Attorneys office. Do you know that they don’t do ANY of the county’s civil work yet that is half of their responsibility? They source ALL of it out at our expense.
The City farmed the work out to Ahlers when Tom Meyer was the City Attorney and when Chip Folkers was the City Attorney before him.
I sure hope Mason City Government doesnt try to eliminate the inhouse garbage system, or eliminate local maintenance workers simply to hire those jobs out. OOOOOHHHHH,,,,Maybe I spoke to soon. Looks to me like the city fathers dont like to do any hard work. Wonder if they would hire out a personal ASS WIPER if they could.
This should really surprise no one. As the city has more and more claims against it those cost will continue to go up. Wait until Foster hits them.
Bizarre! Wasteful!
Mason City citizens are getting nothing for their money.
No jobs, no new industry, no new employers that provide meaningful employment and economic stimulus to Mason City.
Why the people of Mason City put up with this lack of leadership is perplexing.