A Newsday investigation follows up the  stories about  lawyers being carried as full time employees at several school district by finding that 23 Long Island school districts are doing the exact same thing.

In some cases, a town, village, library, special district or county also reported the attorneys as employees, often as full time, even though records show they did not always work full time. By being reported as employees at these other agencies, while also working in private practice, they were able to enhance the size of their state pensions.

Shockingly, neither Newsday, nor anyone else that I’m aware of, has as yet figured out that this is not a school district problem, but the result of a basic systemic flaw in the operation of these small local governmental units.  If one looks under the bedsheets of almost any local government, you’re going to find the same problem, although the manifestations will change from government to government because the options for abuse and corruption differ.  But the underlying problem is exactly the same.

In each of these small governmental units, there is one lawyer who becomes the official attorney for the unit.  Unlike litigators, whose every decision is challenged in court on a constant basis, these attorneys are left to espouse “The Law” to a group of elected officials who are generally either not lawyers or not lawyers knowledgeable about the relevant law. 

These official attorneys, who may or may not be competent since there is no one qualified to challenge or question them, make pronouncements upon which these local governmental units rely as if it’s the word from above.  If the attorney says it’s legal, then it’s legal.  If she says it’s not, then it’s not.  Life is that simple for these local governmental units.

This opens the door to mischief of all sorts.  First, as all lawyers are aware, the law is rarely so simple that a single lawyer can spout responses that are beyond question.  Indeed, even lawyers who are inclined to agree with one another often disagree on the details and nuances as applied to various situations.  We fight like cats and dogs, because the application of the law is never so clear cut.  Even brilliant judges have their decisions reviewed by appellate courts.  Yet these local attorneys are above reproach, and their word is absolute.

Moreover, this situation leaves local governments highly vulnerable to deception and manipulation.  The attorney exerts an inordinate amount of control over the elected body’s decision-making authority, often dictating policy through dubious pronouncements about what the law requires.  With minimal effort, he can push a governmental unit to make harmful and indeed illegal choices, which may work to his benefit or that of people he chooses to help.  It is a flagrant opportunity for abuse and corruption, and there’s no one to stop him. 

Adding fuel to this fire, local governmental units are rife with corruption already.  Not the backroom payoff type of corruption, but more the “honest graft” type and the “rules don’t apply to us” type.  Petty tyrants who would be challenged by a 3rd grade civics test believe that the laws are something to pretend to follow, and that politics is a game to be played through schemes, lies and self-dealing.  Who’s going to stop them?  The only person positioned to know better is the official lawyer, and his livelihood depends on getting along with the local elected officials.

This is a dangerous and volatile situation, doomed to failure.  But it is not incurable, once the problem is recognized.

I propose that the position of a Statewide Inspector General be created to oversee the functioning of these local governmental units that rely on the counsel of a single lawyer.  The IG can maintain constant oversight and random audits of these units to ascertain whether the attorneys are deceiving, manipulating or otherwise engaging in corrupt practices.  Further, someone needs to protect the taxpayer from mere incompetence, particularly when some elected official has installed his “pal” as the lawyer.

Putting a single lawyer, subject to no oversight whatsoever, in the position of dictating the law to local governmental units is a recipe for corruption.  It’s been shown in Long Island’s school districts, and if anyone scratches the surface in almost any of Long Island’s (or any other locality where this happens) hundreds of villages, sanitation districts, water districts, police districts, library districts, whatever, you will find massive systemic problems. 

It’s time to take a giant step backward, so we can see the forest instead of just staring at the individual tree.  It’s time to fix this problem.