Weber County agrees to $25-per-evaluation bump for two court evaluators, staff to confirm budget

Commissioners at the Weber County work session on Dec. 22 agreed, in discussion, to authorize a $25-per-evaluation increase for two contracted court evaluators pending staff confirmation that the county budget can absorb the change.

Brian Baron told commissioners the increase request stems from evaluators who perform court-ordered evaluations in involuntary-commitment cases. He said the county previously paid about $200 per evaluation for more than a decade and that two doctors had asked for higher pay, first requesting $330 and later reducing their ask to $250. "They, they're not asking for 330 anymore. They just wanna go up to 250," Baron said.

Baron also cautioned the commission about past billing problems. He recounted an earlier case in which an evaluator "came and dumped 2 years worth of invoices on us. It was over a $100,000," and said that experience prompted the county to run an RFP and enter contracts with five evaluators that require timely invoicing.

Commissioners debated whether to raise all contracted evaluators' rates or to limit the increase to the two doctors who requested it. Commissioner Gage Frower favored a consistent approach: "What if we bumped everybody 25? ... Just keep it consistent," he said. Staff member Stephanie Eber said she had averaged recent caseloads and estimated the requested increase would amount to roughly $5,000 based on those figures, but the transcript contains inconsistent phrasing about whether that $5,000 figure referred to each doctor or to the two together. Stephanie told the commission she would verify the numbers.

Chair Sharon Bowles directed staff to proceed if the budget allows and to notify Brian Baron to implement the $25 increase for the two providers. The decision was handled as direction to staff rather than a formal recorded vote.

Next steps: Stephanie Eber will confirm the fiscal impact across all contracted evaluators; staff will implement the $25 increase for the two doctors if the county can accommodate the cost within current budgets.