Commission approves $100-per-hour fee for out-of-the-ordinary legal research

Speaker 1 introduced the state's attorney item and Speaker 2 said that Ken prepared a resolution setting a $100-per-hour charge for time spent beyond an initial hour on research "that is out of the ordinary for any particular office." Speaker 4 questioned whether document gathering constituted "research" and suggested creating a standard information letter directing the public to online resources such as the county GIS, the recorded deeds system (iDocs), and the county beacon site.

Speaker 4 moved to approve the resolution and Speaker 1 seconded. There was a brief exchange about whether the fee should instead be put into the county fee schedule at a later update; commissioners agreed to leave that possibility for a future fee schedule review. The commission approved the resolution by voice vote.

The resolution directs staff to charge $100 per hour for extraordinary research time beyond one hour; the motion record in the transcript is by voice vote and individual roll-call tallies were not provided in the public record.