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Madison Considers Reimbursing Legal Fees of Citizens Filing Successful Claims with Police and Fire Commission

Madison could become the first municipality in the state to provide such reimbursements to citizens.

(TNS) - In what may be a first in Wisconsin, Madison City Council members are proposing an ordinance to reimburse legal fees of citizens who bring successful claims against city employees or officials before the Police and Fire Commission.

The proposal by lead sponsor Ald. Shiva Bidar-Sielaff and at least seven others also would give the council discretion to adjust reimbursement for a police or fire chief who faced multiple complaints with mixed outcomes before the commission, which has the authority to hire, fire and discipline sworn police and fire employees.

Bidar-Sielaff said the proposal intends to clarify confusion about reimbursements that emerged as the council debated a resolution this spring to reimburse Police Chief Mike Koval for legal fees he spent fighting a misconduct complaint before the commission. It would also give residents equal standing to recover legal expenses, she said.

“It’s coming from a positive place,” she said. “It’s directed at making sure we have clarity in the future. It’s an issue of creating equal access for people who have the least means.”

Bidar-Sielaff intends to introduce the ordinance to the council on June 6. It will be decided at a later date.

Koval voiced strong reservations, saying the proposal fuels a litigious environment and would discourage the future pool of candidates for police and fire chiefs, who could face financial exposure.

Complaint against Koval

The proposal follows the council’s narrow approval on May 2 of a resolution to reimburse Koval for legal expenses spent fighting the misconduct complaint.

In that case, members voted 15-4 to pay Koval $22,000 in costs after the commission ruled in March that he committed misconduct for making disrespectful comments but declined to discipline him. The council debated three repayments of varying amounts, but settled on the full cost while noting his actions aren’t sanctioned. The reimbursement needed 15 votes since the money would come from city reserve funds.

The complaint stemmed from when Koval called Sharon Irwin — grandmother of 19-year-old Tony Robinson, who was fatally shot by a police officer in 2015 — a “raging lunatic” in a stairwell of the City-County Building last June. The commission also dismissed charges that Koval acted inappropriately when he pounded on a desk during a council meeting the same evening and appeared to make a threatening gesture by reaching toward his gun in the stairwell.

The proposed ordinance is legally sound, City Attorney Michael May said, adding that Madison could become the first municipality in the state to provide such reimbursements to citizens.

Koval said, “I worry about an environment which is already highly litigious against public officials being tacitly encouraged by the prospect of having attorney’s fees reimbursed. Couple this with ‘qualifiers’ on the extent to which a police or fire chief can be compensated for legal fees incurred, and you are selectively filtering the candidate pool for those who aspire to be Madison’s police or fire chief.”

He added, “There are definitely going to be individuals who will not take on a job where claims against the chief are not defended to the fullest extent, and where the head of the agency is provided less protection than his or her rank-and-file staff.”

Determining ‘success’

Currently, state law gives the council discretion to cover the legal fees of employees or officials, May said.

Most of the city’s labor contracts with police and fire unions and employee associations require the city to reimburse the legal fees of those employees if their defense of a complaint is successful.

Last year, the council approved a resolution to give chiefs the same protections as other police and fire employees. Bidar-Sielaff’s proposal repeals that resolution and replaces it with new standards that still provide reimbursement for successful defense of a complaint and establishes standards to define “success” in a proceeding.

Part of the ordinance, which essentially applies to chiefs and citizens, allows the council to adjust reimbursements if some claims before the commission are successful and others are not. That would include a situation in which the commission finds a violation of standards but imposes no punishment, as it did with the Koval complaint earlier this year.

Ald. Paul Skidmore, 9th District, a Public Safety Review Committee member and vocal defender of the police department, said he is “really opposed” to the proposal, claiming it is directed at Koval and could open a floodgate of frivolous complaints to the commission.

Skidmore said there now is no cost to make a complaint and that legal representation isn’t required. He called the proposed ordinance “an opportunity for lawyers to make money.”

Bidar-Sielaff said the ordinance won’t encourage frivolous complaints, and actually raises the bar because residents won’t want to risk their own money for claims that have no merit.

The proposal says it’s in the public interest to reimburse fees to employees and officials who successfully defend actions before the commission, but also in the public interest to reimburse citizens who successfully prosecute violations.

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©2017 The Wisconsin State Journal (Madison, Wis.)

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