County votes to add lawyer to help with child support cases

St. Croix County supervisors rethought an earlier decision and agreed last week to add another lawyer to the corporation counsel’s office.

Child Support Administrator Katie Kapaun urged the addition, saying her office needs more legal help to keep up with its caseload, which has increased 13 percent in the last two years.

County judges now devote eight hours a month to child support collections. Once a fourth judge is added next summer, they’ve agreed to increase that court time to 12-16 hours a month.

But, said Kapaun, that won’t help if there isn’t a corporation counsel to work on the cases.

Child support court work includes establishing paternity and support obligations, contempt actions for failure to pay and modifications to existing orders. That work involves preparation, pre-court conferences, court presentations and reviewing court orders once they’re filed.

Kapaun said Assistant Corporation Counsel Don Gillen averages about 65 hours per month on child support work. Corporation Counsel Greg Timmerman had agreed that if a new position were added to his office, that lawyer would spend half his time working on child support.

But the County Board cut the second assistant corporation counsel from a list of new positions before adopting the 2008 budget.

Kapaun said supervisors may not have understood that there is partial state funding for the lawyer.

The new position, including salary and benefits, would cost about $80,000.

Kapaun said state reimbursement for child support work would cover $27,000 of the cost. The extra position is also expected to save about $48,000 a year currently spent on outside lawyers who work with personnel issues.

Therefore, said Kapaun, the net extra cost from the tax levy would be about $6,000.

She said the county is falling behind state averages for current child support collections and could be penalized financially for not meeting standards.

Kapaun said the office can only get about 28 cases a month into court, and child support court hours are now booked up into August.

Hudson Supervisor Sharon Norton-Bauman said she would like some guarantee that the new position would only cost the general fund $6,000.

Since the need for outside legal help in employment matters varies, that’s hard to determine, replied County Board Chairman Buck Malick.

A motion to reconsider the position carried on a unanimous vote. A motion to table a decision until the January meeting failed on an 8-19 vote. The motion to add the new position was adopted 21-6.