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Ways and Means committee reviews $35,000 request to cover outside legal fees for workers' compensation
Summary
At a Jan. 27 Committee of Ways and Means meeting, interim HR Director John Russolillo requested a $35,000 appropriation to cover increased outside counsel costs for workers' compensation cases after a third-party retainer ended and hourly rates rose.
The Committee of Ways and Means of the City of Everett met Monday, Jan. 27, 2025, at 6 p.m. and heard a request to appropriate $35,000 from budgetary fund balance to the Human Resources professional services account to cover higher legal costs tied to workers' compensation cases.
John Russolillo, interim acting human resources director for the City of Everett, asked the committee to authorize the transfer to the HR professional services line "to try to get some more funding for the professional services line for workers' compensation legal fees, basically." He told the committee the increase is tied to a change in outside counsel arrangements: "they actually shut down last fiscal year and gave us a 60 day notice ... it went from having a retainer plus a fixed cost for the attorney fee of 125 an hour to then without that 3rd party, now we have hired that lawyer for 250 an hour," which has raised the department's run rate.
Councilor Hanlon asked, "Legal fees, are you talking about outside lawyers that we're hiring?" Russolillo confirmed that the costs are for outside counsel used to handle workers' compensation matters. He said the professional services line in the HR budget is where those legal fees are paid and that the department had budgeted $25,000 for the line in the current fiscal year.
Committee members moved to invite the interim HR director to speak; that motion was made and accepted. The transcript records discussion of the appropriation request and the reasons for the higher run rate but does not record a formal committee vote on the $35,000 transfer during the portion of the meeting captured in the transcript.
Councilor Patriconio asked, "How many people do we have on Work With Sculpt?" (as recorded in the transcript). Russolillo replied that there are "some for the city, we have some for the school, and then we have some for police and fire," but did not provide a specific count in the recorded discussion.
The discussion focused on covering legal fees already incurred or anticipated because of the higher hourly rate and the end of the prior third-party retainer. No additional actions, approvals, or timelines for a formal vote on the appropriation are recorded in the available transcript excerpt.
