Good afternoon fellow PA's! Our new attorney has already been at work
answering and clarifying items for our organization. Please see his response
below regarding the implementation of the new salary guidelines. Essentially,
he states that the opinion of the Reynolds County Attorney is reliable and that
any PA could present this opinion to their home county for adoption.
Thank you,
Danielle L. Boggs, LCSW, NCG
Webster County Public Administrator
101 S. Crittenden, Rm. B5
Marshfield, MO 65706
2022 - 2024 President
Missouri Association of Public Administrators (MAPA)
Phone: (417) 468-2135
Fax: (417) 468-2651
-----Original Message-----
From: "James Owen" <jamesowenesq@xxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, November 28, 2022 2:12pm
To: "Danielle Boggs" <dboggs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: FW: Re: Salary questions
Question: New legislation clarifies that a letter of guardianship and letter of
conservatorship count as two letters even if they pertain to the same
individual. This affects the full-time vs. part-time status of several PA's.
The bill also allows the county salary commission the option of using the
salary table even if the PA has under 40 letters. If these changes are voted
in by the salary commission, when does the salary increase take effect? Based
on statute, some counties are willing to implement the changes on 1/1/23, but
this may not align with guidelines in the state constitution.
Answer: To be clear, I am MAPA's attorney. Not the attorney for the individual
PA. We all know this but it is worth reiterating in this email because it
seems, for the purposes of the Reynolds County PA, there is a legal opinion
being offered by the County lawyer. It reads:
"I have searched for case opinions or practice summaries in our westlaw
research regarding this statute, and there isn’t anything to help interpret or
define it. So, I am giving you my opinion of it based on the reading of it
coupled with another statute in the same section. I understand you are already
on salary. Section 473.730.4 states that “all salaried public administrators
are subject to the minimum salary requirements set out in Section 473.742.”
The way I read the 2 statutes together your salary is to be based on the
minimum salary requirement of 473.742. So, under section 473.742.2(5).
Section 473.742.4 says regardless of section 473.742.2, you can be paid based
on the valuation schedule in subdivision 5 when a majority approves it at the
salary commission. Therefore, since the salary commission already voted it in,
I would argue it’s a done deal under this Statute Section 473.742.4 because
that section goes on at the end of it to say that if the salary commission
elects by a majority to pay according to the assessed valuation schedule, they
“shall not” (i.e. cannot) change it in the future to pay according to the
average number of open letters.
This is my reading and argument of the wording in the statute."End quote.
Whether I agree with this interpretation is irrelevant. This lawyer is the
lawyer for Reynolds County. The PA and the County Commission should absolutely
rely on this opinion as well as any other PA's in your organization. My
interpretation or Mr. Elliot's interpretation (and he is a very good lawyer)
has no greater weight than that of the County Attorney for Reynolds County. We
are not arbiters; we are merely counselors and I do not intend to get in the
way of the opinion the Reynolds County lawyer has provided nor would I get in
the way of that opinion being adopted by any other county official.
So the answer is: You have a legal conclusion that is perfectly valid for a PA
and their Commission to rely upon. There is no reason for me to provide
anything otherwise.
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