County attorney requests eventual full-time status

No action was taken yet on officially moving County Attorney Melissa Larson to full-time status during last week’s meeting, however the Adair County supervisors now have the item on their agenda and will talk about it in the near future.

Larson visited with the supervisors, saying that keeping a paralegal position as part-time is fine, but she devotes 50-60 hours per week on trials that are county attorney business. This is aside from her private legal practice.

“It leaves me very little time to devote to my private practice, and I also no longer have an employee in my private practice,” Larson said. “My goal would be to wind down the private practice by the end of the fiscal year if this is something we’re going to talk about.”

If she were to go full-time as county attorney, Larson said she would prefer to keep her current location, which is on the southwest corner of the Greenfield Public Square.

Iowa Code prohibits full-time county attorneys from having a private practice.

Larson provided an overview of what overhead costs may look like if the county brought her on full-time. She said there are probably opportunities where the different county departments can consolidate resources as well.

The supervisors asked Larson where she thinks they are on pay right now with her. She said she is not looking for a “huge adjustment” in wanting this move.

“I’ve mulled this over for longer than just this year and I think the timing is good. I think that it would be what is best for the county. It gives me the ability to focus solely on county matters,” Larson said. “When someone comes to me and needs help — I just helped the assessor’s office with a property value appeal — that took longer than it should have because I have other things to do.”

The supervisors would need to pass a resolution if they are to make Larson full-time. The switch would not affect Larson’s election cycle.

The compensation board, which makes a recommendation to the board of supervisors for the pay of elected officials, will meet this month. The supervisors thought that group could possibly provide a recommendation for part- and full-time pay structure and let the supervisors take action on the transition sometime before the budgeting season is complete.

“I just think that being honest about my time, I’ve been full-time for a long time. I wanted that flexibility [to do private and county attorney work] but I can’t keep burning the candle at both ends,” Larson said. “If someone wanted to come in and run against me, that’s part of the process and I could start up a private practice pretty easily.”

In other business, the supervisors:

• signed an updated agreement with Windstream

• passed a child abuse prevention grand draw down

• approved a transfer resolution, internal advance resolution, TIF indebtedness certification, urban renewal report and an IT assessment