Board OKs More Legal Services Costs

Prompted by a growing caseload, Ventura County supervisors agreed Tuesday to pay an additional $90,000 to a legal services firm that represents the poor when the public defender’s office has a conflict.

The increase, the second this year for Ventura-based Conflict Defense Associates, will raise the firm’s contract this year to about $1.8 million.

In late February, supervisors granted the firm $350,000 on top of its $1.3-million annual allocation. The firm received extra payments of $550,000 in 1997-98 and $500,000 in 1996-97. The funds are being used to cover the cost of investigators and expert witnesses for the additional cases, county officials said.

Partly as a result of these cost overruns, the county launched an aggressive campaign to solicit additional bidders for its indigent legal services contract, which expires June 30. After advertising in bar association newspapers and on Web sites, the county received one other bid for the four-year contract.

“For the past 20 years, Conflict Defense Associates has been the only bidder,” said Robert Sherman, a criminal justice analyst at the chief administration office. “We’ll have a competitive situation for the contract for the first time in a long time.”

In about two weeks, Sherman will return to the board to recommend whether the county should award the contract to Madera-based John Barker & Associates or to Conflict Defense Associates.

Meanwhile, an inquiry is ongoing by the Ventura County Grand Jury into why the local legal services firm has run $1.4 million over budget for the past three years. --PAMELA J. JOHNSON