I Wonder
It makes me wonder how we got to be such a litigious society. Is it because we just like suing each other.? Or is it because municipalities, school boards, and Monmouth County commissioners feel a need to hire so many attorneys and then want to be sure they have work for them to do? After all, they all set aside millions of dollars in taxes in their annual budgets assuring they have enough money to pay all the bills and services they anticipate happening in the course of the year. Especially for attorneys.
Question #1
My first question to the Monmouth Commissioners is: If you really think you need the services of so many attorneys? You must, because you all voted for them.
Question #2
So my next question is: If you expect so much action and so many lawsuits, wouldn’t it make more sense, if you really wanted to help the taxpayer, to find out what they’re doing wrong that requires so much legal action , then correct that? Wouldn’t that be cheaper and better for the Monmouth County resident struggling to pay his taxes every day?
Atlantic Highlands
I thought it was horrific that little Atlantic Highlands, one of 53 municipalities in Monmouth County, feels the need to hire more than a dozen attorneys that it did at its reorganization meeting Sunday. And that isn’t even all they have on the payroll all together.
Highlands
Highlands, by comparison, hired seven attorneys. To people like me, who can remember when every borough had one single attorney or law firm that pretty well handled anything that came up before the governing body, it seems an overwhelming and tragic payoff with tax dollars to professionals who have contributed heavily to campaigns, private businesses or special causes.
Three Kings
But I’ll set aside both of those towns for the minute in order to address the Monmouth County expenditures. Their reorganization was Thursday, Jan. 6. Normally, that’s the day Christians honor the fact that Three Kings brought gifts of gold and more to a new born Baby. This year, it was Monmouth County who gave away the gifts of gold. But they are giving it to attorneys.
52 Attorneys
How about the county, in a single day, and not counting some others already on the payroll, hiring 52 attorneys???? Fifty-two. One short of the number of municipalities.
But none of those 52 does work for any of the 53 municipalities on the money they get from the County. No, Sir. They are all separate contracts. Several of the legal firms get money from both municipalities, school boards, AND the county. But they’re all separate paychecks from different towns, schools boards or departments of the County they represent.. Heck, several of the ones hired by the County even get separate paychecks for different things they’re doing for different departments of the County.
In fact, the only thing all these millions of dollars for legal fees have in common is that every one of them is paid for by the taxpayers of Monmouth County.
If taxpayers would ever took a look at all the money paid for attorneys at all levels of government and education, they’d have a better understanding why their taxes are so high and getting higher.
Look at Monmouth County Commissioners approving attorneys yesterday.
They Really Did
Indeed, they really did hire 52 attorneys. That’s in addition to County Counsel Michael Fitzgerald who’s already on the payroll. And it was Mr. Fitzgerald who reviewed all the applications for all the other 52 attorneys hired yesterday. Reviewed them and recommended them.
Isn’t it nice to be a friend of Mr. Fitzgerald.
This is not to say each and every one of these attorneys is not important and essential. No indeed.
They’re all specialists. You can’t for instance, hire a specialist in labor litigation to handle finances, as they did in Atlantic Highlands. But that’s another story.
Instead, you have to hire specialists in each field.
They’re All Specialists
For instance, apparently the seven attorneys named yesterday to handle workman’s compensation cases for a total of $250,000, aren’t sufficiently savvy in say, Civil Commitment litigation. The Commissioners hired another three for that, at a cost of $60,000. But strangely, one of the three hired for that field is also the one for Workman’s Compensation. But it’s a separate paycheck.
Then there’s one attorney hired, at $30,000, for Bail forfeiture. Don’t know whether that’s to be sure money gets forfeited by criminals or whether it’s to represent for the county if a suspected criminal doesn’t think it should be forfeited and challenges it. Don’t know what the County does with the money the criminal is forced to forfeit either.
Back to the list of 52 paid lawyer line items. Besides the workman’s comp and bail forfeiture attorneys, there are four bond counsels for another $150,000, the three aforementioned for civil commitment, for $60,000, another four for subrogation legal services for $50,000, six more for Solid Waste, renewable energy and the environment for another $200,000, and three for energy, for another $150,000.
I’m not an attorney, nor am I an environmentalist or scientist, so I don’t know the difference between energy and renewable energy and why it takes two different line items, with at least one of the same three attorneys listed in both line items, and more money.
Again, just as an example, several of the same law firms got several of the appointments in different areas. That firm that got the workman’s comp and civil commitment also is apparently that expert in energy and renewable energy
SO! If you’re still with me, all those attorneys and firms in all those areas add up to $1.440 million of your tax dollars for 2023 for Monmouth County business.
23 More Attorneys
Think that’s horrifying? Before approving all the resolutions for each of these jobs, again with the review and recommendation of Chief Attorney Fitzgerald, whose salary is NOT included here, there was another resolution to approve attorneys for “General and special county commissioner “ legal services. A total of TWENTY-THREE attorneys were hired for that. The total money set aside for that 23 attorneys? A little over half a million dollars at $550,000.
That mean, if I added correctly though I’m not a financial wizard either, our Monmouth County Commissioners voted to allocate $1,890,000 of your tax dollars simply for a lot of, but not all, attorneys to handle your county business for a year. What’s worse, that’s in addition to the attorneys who are on the job but did not have to be re-appointed at this particular reorganization. Including Mr. Fitzgerald.
