We will uh finish up today with the legal department.

It is great to see our city attorney, Arturo Michelle, and also being joined by Mirabel Torres.

And they will at this time give the FY2027 proposed budget presentation.

City attorney, the floor is yours.

Thank you.

So you all have this on your screen.

Now I have to just figure out how to scroll through it.

Well scroll.

Okay.

Yeah, so the first is just the table of contents.

On strategic alignment, we've tried to put our various sections in the areas of the mayor's priorities.

So I think that's kind of self-explanatory what you see there.

On the next screen is it's expenditure by funds.

We we tap into the general fund, also the property and casualty fund, mainly to pay settlements, and then the workers' compensation fund.

And it's been pretty static.

There hasn't been a lot of change in that.

On the next slide, you can see we're very heavily in personnel.

Um general fund funds most of it.

We have some from property and casualty, but a chunk of that has to be used for settlement.

And then there's a workers' comp component.

If you look at the expenditures by program, which is the following slide, slide number six.

Yeah, uh many of the change numbers are relatively small.

You will see that contracts has changed, has been an increase in part because there's been more activity there.

There's been a decrease in general counsel because we we've lost some personnel.

And then you if you look further down, you see real estate has a bump, and a lot of that is to adding people, but primarily from the hope uh three percent increase.

In the administrative services, the following slide, um you will see you know we're trying to find a way to measure it, and we don't really have a good way to do it.

Simply listing the number we are handling, I think reflects little about our efficiency.

So we're we're trying to find a way to better track that.

Um there's clearly a large number of discovery matters and subpoenas, and interestingly, in municipal court, we have a pretty sophisticated defense bar here in Houston, and they have a tendency to use the uh discovery process as a means to slow down the prosecution.

So that's something that we constantly struggle and fight in the motion hearings.

Um, you know, before our municipal court judges.

Claims and subrogation, which is the following slide, it's it's at slide eight.

Uh what we're trying to do is see how many we can resolve at the at a lower level to clear it because if it doesn't get cleared, it moves on to our torts and civil rights group.

And you know that that takes a number of times.

What we're trying to do is get these um resolved at the lowest level, and that's really our efficiency mark.

Um if you look at slide number nine, you'll see what happens when it goes into torts.

And I think we've done pretty well in terms of claims where that we get resolved and claims we we have no payment, but we also have to balance this with um the ability to just move through our our docket.

So there's a certain mentality that we have to be able to settle some, and we should be settling the ones that we can because otherwise we're just gonna get bogged down and won't won't have sufficient personnel to handle that.

On contracts, uh you will see that uh, you know, we generally complete within you know, in the time that's being requested.

One thing we struggle with in and generally within the department is is uh paying our lawyers, you know, we're below market.

We've lost a number of contract lawyers recently, and so it's really kudos to Martin and his group that we're able to get through as many contracts.

But that's uh a constant issue that we face in the legal department is how do we retain lawyers?

Um when you look at the following slide, um, you know, that is again a uh, you know, contract opinions, contracts handle, it's it's really more of the same.

Uh when you get into general counsel, we have a number of ordinances that we deal with, and you know, TPIA requests continue to increase.

So that takes up a huge percentage of time of what our lawyers do, and we use a rotation system where all of our lawyers are involved in TPIA, which I think works well because everyone needs to be knowledgeable about that.

There are emergency situations where things come into play, and every one of our lawyers needs to be knowledgeable about how to address that.

In general litigation, um, you know, we obviously have a number of lawsuits defend and lawsuits that we file.

Um we have in terms of outside council use, most of it has been in the condemnation realm, uh, because that takes up an increasing amount of of time, and these are sort of bet the company type cases.

The Texas Constitution language on eminent domain varies from the US Constitution, and the Texas Supreme Court has been picking up on that, and has the tendency has been to award more to uh to condemnees, and so that puts a city between a rock and a hard place.

For example, um you want to have a uh flood control regulations.

If you don't have that, um, the homeowners cannot get federal insurance.

But if but to the degree we put um regulations in place, we get more uh contested condemnation matters, and so we're faced between providing the basis for insurance and uh effectively paying more to condemn property that we need for our drainage and expansion.

So uh we use outside counsel pretty frequently because we have got a couple big cases coming before the Texas Supreme Court where I think this is going to come to a head in labor employment and and civil service.

Uh one of the main focuses has been to increase training so that we're able to provide more consistent training to the various departments because training, as you all know, is not just a matter of hearing at once.

You have to go back and make sure it but almost like osmosis that people really begin to understand what's needed so we have less issues, we have a better relationship with our unions, hope, and so on.

And you can see the so the number of uh matters that we've handled on that.

Uh in municipal prosecution, we've highlighted there the dangerous dog cases that we've had pretty good success with.

Um what I mentioned before about municipal uh prosecution holds very true.

We get a tremendous number of uh matters, and we tend to get bogged down because of the discovery requests.

So we try to be efficient in how we look at these.

And you know, the code of criminal procedure says that the obligation of prosecutors is to see that justice is done rather than to obtain convictions.

So what we really try to do is affect behavior more than anything else.

That's the primary goal of municipal prosecution.

Uh neighborhood services, we um uh we have a number of dangerous buildings that we're we're addressing right now, you know, particularly with the upcoming events that we have, and then we also have the nuisance lawsuits, and we tend to keep up with what HPD is looking at.

You know, they're they're repeated habitual criminal violations.

So we need HPD's help in this before we can move on and actually file the lawsuit.

So we've increased it somewhat.

We hope to increase more because of a budget amendment last year.

We've added a couple personnel, so hopefully we can uh we can move this forward and working in conjunction with HPD, get um more accelerated review on their end.

OIG, we have you know quite a bit of data here in terms of what we've been focusing on and what we do, and I know OIG has always been an issue of interest to counsel.

You know, where what is the best format for it?

Where should it be housed?

You know, what should their training be?

And so all of this is being looked at by the administration, I think by the appropriate committee.

Um when I first began as city attorney, was housed in HPD.

You know, wherever it's housed, it's going to be part of the city.

So you're always going to have that.

But I think the goal is to move through matters as expeditiously as possible.

And uh we also need to make sure that employees feel they're treated fairly.

You know, I think that's been a concern of hope is how does OIG operate?

So that's I think going to be one of the focus of changes that come into play.

Uh our real estate matters.

Um, you know, the number that we support the housing departments in others having to do with easements, working with the planning commission.

We were very low staffed, but we're staffing up now.

We have Tammy Kim as the section head.

I think she's doing a fantastic job, works very well with planning with the other departments.

So I'm feeling very good about the direction real estate is headed in.

Uh torts and civil rights.

Uh this is an issue also like with real estate, where I think we've begun to stabilize um our personnel.

You know, we've had we've in the past we've had issues uh maintaining our personnel there.

That has stabilized and much needed because we have an increasing number of claims or primarily tort claims.

Uh we do get Section 1983 claims that take up a tremendous amount of time.

We've had success in Harding Street, not so much in the other matter where uh an officer was returning from a call and hit an elderly gentleman who who passed away, that's on appeal.

But those are very significant cases that that we're taking a close look at.

And again, better training should help reduce the number of incidents that we have.

Uh our revenue highlights that you see there.

Our general fund revenues we get is primarily recapturing money from departments that pay the salaries of our various personnel, contract lawyers and public works, for example.

Um, real estate lawyers for planning.

Uh the property and casualty revenues have to match the expenditures in the fund.

Um if you look down at the what slide am I on now, 28, you'll see that the property and casualty fund has been relatively stable.

The general fund revenue has seen a spike.

That's largely due to additional personnel and also the um the hope increases.

If you look at the revenue by programs, you know, we've tried to cut our administrative services, everything else has stayed primarily uh static.

OIG has costs that relate to the ability to be able to do forensic investigation into uh into data.

Um that is um that is really my presentation.

I would like to end by you know, focusing on the you know, we our lawyers are underpaid relative to the market, we struggle to keep them.

Um we're trying to look at different means by so we can reward our more productive lawyers, and I'm convinced that the uh the way to address this overall is to really get lawyers that are coming out of school, you know, offer them the opportunity to do work that they would not get in private practice.

If we can keep them here two, three, four years, I think that's a big benefit.

Um we've tapped into working with the law schools.

We need to tap into scholarship programs where P you all remember Rahat Huke.

You know, he worked three years in the attorney general's office and seven years for us.

That allowed him to have his student loans repaid.

So we need to tap into more of those programs, but that's probably the biggest struggle that we face in legal.

Thank you very much.

Uh you guys do a great job, and I know that um I I've talked to lawyers who have left, so I know that the pay is an issue, and I know I think also the the no remote work thing has been an issue.

So um, you know, thanks for bringing that to our attention.

Councilmember Ramirez.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

And um I'll echo what Councilmember Alcorn said, Chair Alcorn.

Um, very happy with uh the responsiveness I get from your staff, um, or Tureau.

And uh I think you all do a great job.

So let me just say that at the outset.

Uh I understand the challenges keeping lawyers on staff, you know, in in government work, and I'd be supportive of pay increases, you know, for for your staff to keep them on board.

I understand we're never gonna compare with what you know an attorney can make in in private practice, certainly, but um we obviously we need to be fully staffed in your department so that we can be as efficient as possible.

Um you mentioned hiring out of out of the law schools.

Does the legal department offer clerkships for uh law students?

Uh uh we do.

We do.

We offer um clerkships, we pay them during the summer, and we've had some throughout the year.

I think the key there is really developing strong relationships with the administrative staff of the law schools, the deans, the placement people.

Um I near jayer has been tasked with heading that up, but any opportunity I get to go to an event at a law school, uh I want to take advantage of it so I can talk to the dean directly.

And I'm curious to know what uh your clerks who are in who are in law school make on an hourly basis.

Uh I'm not sure I I have that.

I guess we we can circle back on that.

I'll get that to you.

Yeah.

But I know when I was at the DA's office, there was a program where you could start working before you got your license.

Correct.

Uh with a bar cart under the supervision of a supervising attorney, and uh that seemed to work well for getting getting uh folks hired, good people hired.

Um and don't laugh me out of the room, but um, you know, lawyers are encouraged to do pro bono work.

Is there any any way that um some of the work the city does could be done on a volunteer basis?

Yeah, we we asked when we contract with outside law firms, we asked for them to provide training, CLEs for us, but we also reach out to them to see if they can provide some assistance in certain matters that uh and it could be not only directly for the city, but it could be a situation where there's a neighborhood that needs a uh deed restriction help.

So we do do that, but I would like that process program to become more robust.

So um you mentioned um two positions that were added last year, and that was as a result of my budget amendment that passed.

So thank the council for passing that.

And so those positions are being retained in this budget, is that right?

Yes, that's correct.

Yeah, we we've asked the administration that this is uh this will allow us to do a lot of good, and particularly in areas where uh there's a lot of blight and complaints by the community.

Right.

And so both of those positions are focused on nuisance actions, one to traditional uh nuisance type violations, but then another uh to combat places where human trafficking is common, sexually oriented businesses and so forth.

So I'm glad those are being uh continued.

And so I'll go back in the queue.

Oh, okay.

So the last thing I'll ask you about um you mentioned getting help needing help from HBD on the nuisance cases.

Are you do you feel that um you're getting adequate help there, or could could they use additional staffing focused on the other?

I think we are getting adequate help.

Uh I think the goal I have is to find a better way to track how efficient we are both on the investigatory end and on the prosecution end in terms of what we do.

I think that's really the next step.

And before I would say that there's a need for more personnel in either area.

And so what unit uh typically assists the lawyers?

The fast unit.

Fast.

Okay.

All right.

Okay, thank you.

That's all I have.

Artero, your budget was so flat and boring.

I didn't even send any written questions.

I mean, I've searched for something, man.

Nothing wrong with that.

But do understand your need for better pay and and want to thank your team.

Amazing uh responsiveness, and I don't think Nirja can go to the colleges.

We have a running too many other things up here, but she'll work on that too.

Um anyway, thanks to your wonderful department, all your attorneys, all the staff that support the attorneys, and we're very grateful to have you here.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, everyone.

Public speakers, Laura, you want to come on the no, even Laura Gallier's passing.

That's how boring your budget is.

Okay.

Anyone else?

Anyone else want to come?

Okay, here we are.

It's the end of our our week.

Colleagues, I really appreciate your engagement at these at these workshops.

We'll see you Monday morning at 9 a.m.

for the mayor's office, the city council budget, Office of Business Opportunity.

Public Works Solid Waste.

And then in the afternoon, starting at 1 30, public works and solid waste.

Wow, that'll be the big one.

Um at 1 30, public works and solid waste to be followed by fire.

So Monday and and again um tomorrow morning, 10 a.m.

at Fonde Brex Center for the budget town hall.

Thank you all for your participation.

Have a great weekend.