12 City Council (08/18/03) - Laserfiche WebLink

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Regular City Council Meeting August 18 2003 Page 7 City Attorney Schenk said he and the Assistant City Attorney are members of the State Bar of Texas, International Municipal Lawyers Association, Supreme Court of Texas and various court memberships; the Legal Assistant and the Legal Secretary are members of the State Bar of Texas Legal Assistants Division; and the Legal Assistant is a member of the National Association of Legal Assistants. Training and Tuition, etc., is the actual cost ofthe seminars thatthey attend and related materials that they obtain associated with those seminars. The City Attorney said the line item, Contract Services, is dependant upon, or their tool of the trade in this sense, if they need special expertise outside their own, they try to find attorneys that have that expertise to advise him on matters associated with the city. He advised that they have had additional costs associated with this particular account that is more reflected in the updated budget they he had given the Council, so it comes and goes. The next department up for consideration was the Municipal Court and Tom Hunt, Municipal Judge, came forward furnishing the City Council with a handout regarding his department. He said the first part of the handout has all of the changes, and the only additional item in their budget is funding for an interpreter. He said they are seeing more and more Hispanic citizens in the City of Paris. The law requires that an interpreter be provided for a person charged or a witness who does not understand the English language. Judge Hunt advised that they are handling about 600 new cases being filed monthly in the Court on an average, and they are collecting approximately $50,000.00 a month which is similar to the last year. He stated that, at the current time, they are requiring about 6700 hours of community service, which if the defendants could pay, would be add an additional six to ten thousand dollars of income, but under the law you have to give people that cannot pay their fines an opportunity to work off their fines.