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Council authorizes recruitment for a full‑time city attorney and legal assistant; FY27 cost estimate presented
Summary
Council authorized the establishment and recruitment of a full‑time city attorney and a 0.6 FTE legal assistant to provide prosecution and code‑compliance support; staff estimated FY27 costs near $225,000 and the council approved the job description by unanimous voice vote.
Staff requested council authorization to establish a full‑time city attorney/prosecutor position and a 0.6 FTE legal assistant to provide prosecution support and increased code‑compliance capacity. Staff said the current contracting model no longer meets workload or risk needs and noted an opportunity related to a local law‑firm transition that temporarily extends contract support.
Staff presented FY26 baseline costs of approximately $112,500 for contracted legal services and proposed doubling the budget to approximately $225,000 for FY27 to cover a city attorney salary (advertised starting at $110,000) plus fringe and a part‑time legal assistant. The proposed structure would split responsibilities with roughly 0.6 FTE focused on prosecution support and 0.4 FTE on code compliance duties; staff discussed funding sources and expected that some code‑compliance costs would be borne by the general fund.
Councilors asked for clarification about the scope of the legal assistant's responsibilities, how code compliance workloads would shift, and whether building‑permit contracts with Whitefish would be affected; staff said building‑permit contracting would not change. After discussion, Councilor (speaker 5) moved to establish the full‑time city attorney/prosecutor position and authorize the city manager to advertise and recruit; the motion was seconded and, by voice vote, passed unanimously. Staff will proceed to post the position and start recruitment.
