White Springs looking for new attorney

Published 9:49 am Thursday, October 12, 2017

WHITE SPRINGS, Fla. — The Town of White Springs is looking for a new town attorney.

The Koberlein Law Offices gave a 30-day notice of intent to terminate the agreement with the town on Oct 4.

“How is the cost of transitioning to a new law firm going to be handled out of the budget,” Councilman Walter McKenzie asked during the town council’s budget workshop Monday.

“I would not venture to guess what their rate per hour will be,” Town Manager Stacy Tebo said.

She added that the town will be advertising for a new lawyer soon.

Also at the workshop, citizen Joe Griffin suggested several options to reduce the budget — which is set at $2,547,381 for fiscal year 2017-18 — including having Financial Director and Town Clerk Pam Tomlinson retire and outsourcing the bookwork, cutting Tebo’s salary and cutting Public Utilities worker Andrew Greene’s salary.

The town’s final millage rate is 4.5208, which is the rollback rate.

Councilwoman Helen Miller asked why the revenues from taxes — including sewer tax, propane utility tax, electric utility tax and half cent sales tax — were spread throughout the general and enterprise fund instead of being organized together in the general fund.

Tomlinson said that the budget was done per general accounting principles.