Nice Work If You Can Get It
I’m doing some research this morning in preparation for tomorrow night’s Mayoral Budget address. I’ve already gone over some arts funding figures, parks department numbers, and the possible privatization of the Mayor’s Action Center.
But what’s really interesting is when you start moving into specific areas and certain line items. Take this one for example. A review of contracts between the Marion County Sheriff’s Department and Counsel to the Sheriff, Kevin Murry, has revealed some interesting information,
By my count, Murray has five separate contracts with MCSD and they are all two-year deals. Here’s what they are for and how they cost. By the way, these agreements were all signed the Monday after the Mayoral election in 2007.
- General Counsel Services – $83,442.45 annual retainer.
- Pension Board Services – Up to $60,000 annually.
- Jail Overcrowding – Up to $100,000 annually.
- Labor & Employment – Up to $75,000 annually for services provided to the Sheriff’s Department.
- Labor & Employment – Up to $100,000 annually for services provided to the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department.
Making a couple assumptions, Murray was potentially getting paid $836,884.90. Of course you would have to take into account Frank Anderson no longer controls IMPD as of March of this year and it’s faulty to assume Murray would bill MCSD every last possible dime, but you have to admit, in an era where the city is $26 million in the hole, six figures ain’t bad take home pay.
August 10th, 2008 at 9:50 am
I wish every level of government, or rotational chunks, could be independently audited every X years. Kind of like the cyclical property tax assessments in Kentucky. With turf protection in bureaucracy being as innate as the survivial and greed that cause it, why wouldn’t it be logical to make this constitutional, or in the city charter, or whatever’s applicable? Bet it would pay for itself.
August 10th, 2008 at 9:51 am
Anyone in this country who pays their fair share in property taxes is a fool. A select handful of buddies are making $836K+ while others are taxed out of their homes. Can’t wait for the collapse!!
August 10th, 2008 at 9:52 am
By the way, I am voting for Barak because it is time we tax people like Kevin Murry an additional 25% or so. He obviously could afford to pay out another 200K+ in taxes. That would be more in line with his ‘fair share.’
August 10th, 2008 at 10:29 am
Being the attorney to elected officials seems to be a good gig. Mike Howard seems to do a great job of living well off the taxpayers up here in Hamilton County.
Peace
August 10th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
I have known and admired Kevin for years. Until now.
This is obscene.
I assume you’re going to follow up, Abdul. And by “follow-up,” I don’t mean, having him on your show and calling him “my friend” over and over.
Kevin has to answer. I’m hoping there is an explanation, but this looks pretty damning.
August 10th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
John doe if you wanna pay more taxes, feel free. there is a thing called equel protection under the law. it should be unconstitutional for one man to pay a greater part of his income than another.
one day the government will think you can afford more taxes and take away more of what you work hard for.
August 10th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Kevin Murray is with Locke Reynolds, right? I don’t know anything about these contracts, but it’s pretty ignorant to presume that because these contract exist, Kevin Murray is taking home $800,000 of taxpayer dollars. It’s overwhelmingly likely that many LR attorneys other than Kevin Murray are doing work for the Sheriff’s Department. Of course, any such arrangements that funnel so much work to a single attorney or law firm should be scrutinized, but it’s highly unlikely that Kevin Murray is taking home anything close to making $836,000 a year off the sheriff’s department in the sense that Abdul is trying to imply.
Of course, Abdul knows all this, because he has an amorhpous “of counsel” relationship with a firm, Lewis & Wilkins, that was created on the basis of a cozy revolving-door relationship with Steve Carter’s office. But of course, it’s cronyism when one of Abdul’s adversaries does it, but it’s “outsourcing” or “privatization” otherwise.
August 10th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
“I have known and admired Kevin for years. Until now. This is obscene.Kevin has to answer. I’m hoping there is an explanation, but this looks pretty damning.”
What is there to answer to? He is a taxpayer welfare leech, no different than the thousand of babies mommas in this city. The only difference I see between him and someone living in Section 8 and on food stamps is that if you have a law degree, your cut of the taxpayer welfare pie is increased greatly if you do government work.
This is so obscene, that it is a great example of why people should _not_ turn in tax cheats. Situations such as there prove that someone paying their “fair share” makes them a sucker. While you slave away for $45K/year, the government takes a nice chunk of that and in turn gives it to folks like Kevin Murry for their services. We need a new law: Any legal work done for the government gets capped at $50/hr. If you can’t make a living on guaranteed city contracts at $50/hr, then you need to be in private practice or do something else.
August 10th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
It doesn’t matter if Kevin makes it all, or if someone else gets some of the gravy. It is nothing but welfare for the elite. Since they are elite and educated, they get thousands upon thousands more than the leeches that sit around and do nothing. Is this right? Shouldn’t there be wage caps? I used to be libertarian, but more and more I want to vote in progressives who will heavily tax these types of people making millions on the backs of taxpayers. Lawyers, university administrators, various contractors, etc. etc.. If a law firm only exist and grows because of millions being raked in from government contracts, then everyone working these is no different than anyone else in this city living on welfare. They are the true welfare queens of this country.
Luckily for us people can’t take it anymore. Property taxes are getting to the make or break point, the credit well is drying up, and the ability to walk into a job with a high school diploma and pull down $75K is extinct for the most part. All this will eventually come together and make for one hell of a big bang. The only other option outside of raise sales and property taxes is to raise income taxes. That means of that $800K+ that Kevin and/or his law firm made, the government is going to have to take at least 50% of it to keep things business as usual.
August 10th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Hey John,
If you want, I’ll be happy to send you the contracts, which oddly enough were all signed a week after the Mayor’s race in 2007.
I wonder why that happened?
August 10th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
I think a $50 cap per hour sounds like a good idea. Wish I’d thought of it.
.
And to “I wanna puke”…please don’t abandon your Libertarianism, as it is the one party of three that stands on principle.
August 10th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Whatcha bet the mayor didn’t even know about those contracts. Time to reign in Sheriff Anderson and his out of control spending! How about a ordinance to give the mayor and the council total control over both the Sheriff and IPD’s spending. Or do they already have it? Lets see the Sheriff department and IPD are all one big happy family! UN HUH then why the different uniforms??? Odd isn’t it…
August 10th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
As I said, I don’t know if the contracts are justified or not. I don’t know what hourly rate is contemplated, to what extent they are purely retainers as opposed to a flat fee, or anything else. I don’t know enough about the operations of the sheriff’s department to know what sort of legal services the department requires on an annual basis. Still, you know that there is a difference between revenue and income. $836,000 in legal fees doesn’t mean $836,000 in a single lawyer’s pocket as income, and it’s misleading for you to suggest as much. Feel free to send those contracts, but make sure you throw in copies of all of L&W’s contracts with the AG and other governmental entities.
“I wanna puke”: As for the $50 per hour cap, that would yield $100,000 in revenue for an attorney who billed 2000 hours a year. Take away money for rent, utilities, support staff, equipment, computer network, furniture, insurance, and the like, and any attorney billing at that rate would be lucky to clear $45,000 per year. That’s all fine and good, but you might not be happy with the quality of legal work produced by the attorneys who are willing to work for that amount. It’s not that it isn’t a good wage, it’s that there’s more money to be made elsewhere for those with law degrees. That pesky market! This is, of course, a form of “privatization.” Expecting private employees to work for deputy prosecutor wages with none of the job security probably isn’t going to yield a good result for the city.
August 10th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
What do you expect from our “don’t be a fool stay in school” Sheriff. I wonder how much money he was paying Jerry McCory to monitor the contarct with Jail II? or was Jerry McCory monitoring prostitution for the sheriff, and the mayor?
August 10th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
However, with respect to $50/hr being too cheap to glean good work, what’s a good figure? Just as we depend on good cops to help clean-out the bad from within, I’m waiting on the good lawyers to give us economic suggestions to help save $ as all layers of government are facing fiscal dysfunctionality. While I can despise school boards, it’s a very, very dark pot that calls the “Educrats” kettle black for their “Educationese” jargon. Haven’t seen an attorneys listing in Angie’s List either.
August 10th, 2008 at 10:42 pm
How about a story about how much Bob Grand and
Barnes and Thornburg has already made under the Ballard administration. This is a place Ballard should first cut the “fluff”!
August 10th, 2008 at 11:00 pm
Abdul, Have you checked to see how many contracts Aaron Haith’s firm has?
That would be nice to know.
August 11th, 2008 at 6:28 am
Check out the budget for legal fees for Carl Drummer, Center Township Trustee. James Beatty was yhe former democrat party chair and a lawyer who became a millionaire working for this office. It surely pays to know the elected officeholders in Indiana. No wonder you can’t find a decent attorney to represent you in a civil suits.
August 11th, 2008 at 6:35 am
How about $275/per hour to the trustee’s office to be paid monthly when billed.
August 11th, 2008 at 8:03 am
It is clear Mayor Peterson rewarded each of his contributors and supporters lucrative contracts after he lost reelection last year. The five blank pages in the city’s budget was reserved for them and the amount of the contracts. The final total is unknown. Could it be $25 million?
The democrat officeholders have no regard for the taxpayers’. Most of them could not balance their own checkbook let alone the city’s or the state’s. They spend, spend, and spend, until the money is gone leaving the problems in the community unresolved.
Republican officeholders have to work twice as hard to cleanup the mess left by them and are criticized for slashing the waste in governemnt spending. Do you know of a tax the democrats did not like?
August 11th, 2008 at 9:41 am
I’ve always been unclear as to why so much legal work needs to be farmed out. Most of these contracts are unnecessary and ridiculously expensive. Any sane person knows this. That’s why the law firms want them so badly. There are a lot of attorneys who would be thrilled to make $50-$80K per year working for government, with only 40 hours per week required, lots of vacation days and flexibility.
Please don’t tell me about the unique “expertise” these firms bring to the table either. I’ve worked with a bunch of them over the years and there’s a whole lot of on-the-job-training taxpayers are funding for these overpriced legal services. And then there’s the quality of work issue. That rip-off deal struck with the Colts/Irsays is a fine example. Like Dewey, I would also like to see a story detailing just how much Grand and B&T pocketed on that one, but we all know that’s never going to happen. A recently graduated MBA could have produced those same pitiful results at far less expense to the taxpayers. The “political connections” of the people at these law firms is one of the biggest reasons we can’t achieve meaningful savings in government so we should stop paying extra for it. Avoiding it altogether would be an even better idea.
The sad truth of the matter is that the overwhelming majority of this work could be done in-house, and probably by attorneys already on staff who are busy playing on the internet a good portion of the day. If they can’t or won’t do it, fire them and hire someone who can. Most of this work isn’t that difficult and intelligent people that don’t necessarily work for B&T, B&D, L&W, etc. are capable of doing it. As taxes continue to go up, maybe people will get fed up enough to make government stop some of this nonsense.
August 11th, 2008 at 9:54 am
I also think an investigative article on Bob Grand would be very interesting…..
August 11th, 2008 at 10:07 am
Juno- it will take somebody to not only tell us where the bodies are buried, but who also speaks “legalese”. The average voter can’t do either. It takes someone similar to yourself to serve as a public or credible background resource. Similar to debating education spending merits. If you don’t have a source to interpret & speak “educationese” from the “educrats”, you’ve half-sunk already. Scare tactics can’t then be effectively reputed. I’m not looking for a plumber to be my lawyer. But, any feigned sympathy and cooperation from the legal community over pressurized governmental budgets hurts us long-term as surely as handing single Moms a check and expecting good parenting.
August 11th, 2008 at 11:28 am
Indy Tax Dollars is reporting that there is no accountability for the food and beverage tax money!!! Where is it going????
http://indytaxdollars.typepad.com/indy_tax_dollars/
August 11th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Taxpayer 834512…there is always good old fashioned picketing outside the houses of these elite political insiders who feel so entitled to our money and keeping us in the dark in regard to its whereabouts. Picketing worked on Bart. Heard rumors that people want to picket Teresa Lubbers’ house because of sky high property taxes and no relief as promised in Meridian Kessler.
.
Her campaign is in T-R-O-U-B-L-E !
August 11th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Have had the Keltner sign in the front lawn for weeks, thank you Ma’am.
August 11th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
We need to request copies for all contracts for legal services with the major law firms.
Barnes & Thornburg, Bakers & Daniels, Ice, Miller, Kreig DeVault, Locke reynolds, Landman & Beatty, and others. These law firms have gotten rich off the backs of taxpayers when the governemnt agency could hire attorneys within thier departments and eliminate the outsiders. Talk about saving the taxpayers millions of dollars. What about it?
August 11th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
AT- Sounds worthy of further discussion. How do we pay for “independent” counsel (is there such a thing?) to look and tell what we have? We’re not exactly flush to pay for audits, as much as I imagine they’ll pay for themselves in the long haul.
August 12th, 2008 at 11:24 am
There will be plenty of ‘independent’ counsel available to offer pro-bono consultation.
They are those lawyers who work for the smaller firms that are ‘squeezed out’ consistently by the greedy firms like Barnes & Thornburg. They are the lawyers who are denied opportunities because they either do not work for B&T, are minorities or women…Hundreds of ‘em if the truth be known.
Just get the contracts and the invoices submitted for payment. I’m particularly interested in B&T. They are destroying the Ballard Administration in more ways than one realizes.
August 12th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
Abdul you have just begun to scratch the surface on contracts, having worked at MCSD for 31 years, I saw many “questionable deals”ie payton wells 2004 dodge interpid fleet of 200 + cars, wells as you know was also on Anderson election team.Jail meals some connection also to payton wells. Hope you dig deeper the whole place still smells of dirty dealing on contracts.
August 13th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
There is an obvious way to get to the bottom of these contracts. Make them, and the procedures under which they were awarded, a matter of EASY PUBLIC ACCESS for all of government. If government wants transparancy, input and savings, then create a site where this information is readily available. We shouldn’t have to endlessly search and fight the b-crats/law firms for it. Interested citizens, and attorneys other than the usual beneficiaries of government’s goodies, could then compare the processes and results, and evaluate them relative to each other and against the cost of performing the same work in house.
You would also have to see the rejected proposals. I suspect that’s where a good many of the dead bodies lie. Which is why it is never going to happen. And please don’t lecture me on how confidentiality is required to preserve the integrity of the bidding process. This is government for which the people are involuntarily forced to pay, not Ford Motor Company competing with Toyota.
Much of this stuff stinks so badly I’m surprised the people of Indianapolis aren’t all sick from the smell. Despite the fact we complain about it, these people keep it up, even after they are caught red-handed breaking their promises to bring an end to it. CIB and Grand? Text book example of a “captured agency”. And exactly what part of “conflict of interest” don’t some of the greatest legal minds in the State get? Why does government continue to rely on the self-serving advice of these people and then defend their right to pay out the ass for the privilege? Did any of the bad press about this appointment change anything? You simply can’t shame the shameless, the greedy and the just plain stupid.
And this is a problem that goes well beyond county government. Lewis & Wilkins wouldn’t even exist if it weren’t for that deal with the AG’s office. Do you really believe that two ex-AGers won that contract fair and square? It’s a very small firm but it’s managed to attract some heavy political hitters in it’s short life. How many campaigns have been and are being run from behind those doors? Do you really think these guys did any lawyering while they were there? If not, why were they paid? Future benefits, that’s why. See Advance Indiana for a rundown of Evan B. and his stint at B&D and what B&D got out of the deal. This is way more complicated than analyzing a few contracts to save the taxpayers millions by cutting costs. This is how the sausage is made. It’s ugly and it stinks.
It’s also dangerous. Once these contracts are analyzed and the results made known, the academic/dogooder/troublemaker, depending on your perspective, is outed. Revealing fiscal irresponsibility is bad enough, but if corruption is found, watch out. Remember, there are a lot more of the guilty than there are of you reformers out there when the people who work in captured agencies, the businesses they monitor and those they employ, the law firms who represent them, and the people put in office by them to perpetuate this expensive nonsense are added up. They also have a lot more at stake, are organized, have the advantage of fighting from within the system, and common interests. They will defend their turf with a vigor and nastiness you have never encountered. Getting between these guys and their wallet is the one thing they will not tolerate without a fight, public and private. Your money is their money and everyone from the lowest level b-crat to the managing partners at the major law firms knows it.
August 13th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Sounds like this parasitic, incumbent constituency is wider and deeper than I comprehended. I’m finding a similar clout of vested interest protecting the “rights” of biological parents versus their children. Not sure if we need Elliot Ness, Batman, or both. Thank you for being forthcoming.
August 14th, 2008 at 12:15 am
WOW Juno! You are so right. This is a must PRINT message for everyone…This is the way it really is and much worse. ONLY MAYOR GREG BALLARD CAN SAVE US!!!!!**************************************
Juno Wrote:
August 13th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
There is an obvious way to get to the bottom of these contracts. Make them, and the procedures under which they were awarded, a matter of EASY PUBLIC ACCESS for all of government. If government wants transparancy, input and savings, then create a site where this information is readily available. We shouldn’t have to endlessly search and fight the b-crats/law firms for it. Interested citizens, and attorneys other than the usual beneficiaries of government’s goodies, could then compare the processes and results, and evaluate them relative to each other and against the cost of performing the same work in house.
You would also have to see the rejected proposals. I suspect that’s where a good many of the dead bodies lie. Which is why it is never going to happen. And please don’t lecture me on how confidentiality is required to preserve the integrity of the bidding process. This is government for which the people are involuntarily forced to pay, not Ford Motor Company competing with Toyota.
Much of this stuff stinks so badly I’m surprised the people of Indianapolis aren’t all sick from the smell. Despite the fact we complain about it, these people keep it up, even after they are caught red-handed breaking their promises to bring an end to it. CIB and Grand? Text book example of a “captured agency”. And exactly what part of “conflict of interest” don’t some of the greatest legal minds in the State get? Why does government continue to rely on the self-serving advice of these people and then defend their right to pay out the ass for the privilege? Did any of the bad press about this appointment change anything? You simply can’t shame the shameless, the greedy and the just plain stupid.
And this is a problem that goes well beyond county government. Lewis & Wilkins wouldn’t even exist if it weren’t for that deal with the AG’s office. Do you really believe that two ex-AGers won that contract fair and square? It’s a very small firm but it’s managed to attract some heavy political hitters in it’s short life. How many campaigns have been and are being run from behind those doors? Do you really think these guys did any lawyering while they were there? If not, why were they paid? Future benefits, that’s why. See Advance Indiana for a rundown of Evan B. and his stint at B&D and what B&D got out of the deal. This is way more complicated than analyzing a few contracts to save the taxpayers millions by cutting costs. This is how the sausage is made. It’s ugly and it stinks.
It’s also dangerous. Once these contracts are analyzed and the results made known, the academic/dogooder/troublemaker, depending on your perspective, is outed. Revealing fiscal irresponsibility is bad enough, but if corruption is found, watch out. Remember, there are a lot more of the guilty than there are of you reformers out there when the people who work in captured agencies, the businesses they monitor and those they employ, the law firms who represent them, and the people put in office by them to perpetuate this expensive nonsense are added up. They also have a lot more at stake, are organized, have the advantage of fighting from within the system, and common interests. They will defend their turf with a vigor and nastiness you have never encountered. Getting between these guys and their wallet is the one thing they will not tolerate without a fight, public and private. Your money is their money and everyone from the lowest level b-crat to the managing partners at the major law firms knows it.