When government pays the bill, you should have a right to see it

Government of the people belongs to the people.

So, it should come as no surprise that one of their most frequent concerns is how government spends taxpayers’ money.

Those concerns took me to Davenport a few weeks ago, where I spent more than an hour testifying in a lawsuit filed by Dr. Allen Diercks, a concerned citizen, against the City of Eldridge.

Diercks sued after the city blocked his efforts to obtain documents that would help answer that fundamental question: How is the city government spending tax money?

My testimony echoed Diercks’ position: It is the public’s money, so the community should be able to see the details of how government officials spend it.

A week later, another Iowa judge provided a crystal-clear reason why that public interest is warranted and why the community deserves prompt access to such information, not obstacles.

Details from the two cases show some Iowa governments rely on flimsy excuses to keep the rest of us in the dark about spending that can involve big money. Both cases center on bills submitted by outside lawyers for work they did for the cities. The Eldridge case is about getting copies of the invoices. The Storm Lake case shows what those bills can reveal.

Like tax collectors, utilities and credit card companies, lawyers send bills for one reason: to get paid. Lawyers do not send invoices to provide legal advice. That occurs in meetings, telephone calls and written letters and memos, not in end-of-the-month bookkeeping documents.

Too often, however, government officials try to prevent public access to these invoices by claiming portions contain information protected by attorney-client privilege.

Diercks is a frequent thorn in the side of Quad Cities governments with his requests for government records showing how tax money is used — or abused. 

 

In 2024, he asked for a year’s worth of billing invoices submitted to Eldridge by Allison Wright, the city’s attorney. The city provided 43 pages of bills but blacked out many details —such as dates work was performed, general descriptions of that work, the time spent on each task, the lawyer performing the work, and that lawyer’s hourly rate.

 

The only meaningful details Diercks could see were the total amount billed each month and the mailing address of Wright’s law firm.

Not satisfied, he sued the city.

The district judge who heard the case on October 7 is expected to rule later this year whether the city was justified in making sweeping redactions. I testified the blacked-out details were the most egregious I have seen in many years of examining invoices from government lawyers.

A week after the Eldridge trial, another Iowa judge, Shayne Mayer, issued a ruling that demonstrated why the public should care what government lawyers charge.

 

Mayer’s ruling came in a lawsuit brought by the City of Storm Lake against Buena Vista County over the improper allocation of property tax revenue for 12 years. The money should have gone to the city, but the county mistakenly distributed it to local schools and other taxing bodies.

 

Storm Lake’s decision to sue Buena Vista County rather than negotiate a resolution to the embarrassing error has led to considerable second-guessing. The case amounts to taxpayers suing taxpayers, and taxpayers are certain to lose in the end.

 

Many believe a settlement would be wiser — and less expensive — than each side hiring high-priced Des Moines attorneys to fight the dispute in court. The case has dragged on for two years, with the trial not expected until next summer.

 

The Storm Lake Times Pilot wrote in a recent editorial, “The public officials should settle their mindless dispute. … All the public officials are eager to head into battle using someone else’s money — the taxpayer’s money. … This shows a lack of respect for the taxpayers from the city, the county and the lawyers.”

 

Judge Mayer’s examination of attorney invoices underscores why taxpayers — people like Allen Diercks — deserve access to unredacted bills submitted by lawyers hired to represent government. 

 

In the Storm Lake-Buena Vista County case, the judge raised concerns about the bills submitted to Storm Lake by the Dorsey & Whitney law firm.

 

For example, the judge said the firm’s lawyers charged above-market hourly rates — $730 for one partner and $660 for another. In contrast, attorneys at Nyemaster Goode billed Buena Vista County at rates of $370, $350 and $250 per hour. The judge said prevailing market rates in northwest Iowa supported a reasonable hourly rate of $515 for each Dorsey & Whitney lawyer — a reduction of roughly 25 percent.

 

The judge also docked Dorsey & Whitney for having two lawyers attend hearings and for time they spent conferring with each other. He said one lawyer would have sufficed, bringing down costs from the combined $1,400 per hour they billed the city.  

The lesson of these cases is clear: Transparency is a cornerstone of government accountability, but taxpayers cannot meaningfully evaluate public spending if the details are hidden from view simply because lawyers are involved.

When government pays the bill, the public should have the right to examine it. ♦

Randy Evans can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com.