Concerns raised over deal with board’s lawyer

Wednesday, March 10, 2004 | 9:32 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- A contract allowing the state Board of Contractors to pay its private lawyer $200 an hour raised questions Tuesday at a meeting of the state Board of Examiners.

Attorney General Brian Sandoval said he would take the issue to the 2005 Legislature. He said his office charges $90 an hour for a deputy attorney general to represent an agency.

But Margi Grein, executive director of the Contractors Board, defended the contract with Reno attorney Bruce Robb for up to $250,000 a year in the two-year contract.

Robb had the same contract last year, Grein said.

"We have a lot of litigation," Grein said. "And there are 200 disciplinary hearings a year that Robb must handle."

Grein said $200 an hour is not excessive. "The going rate in Southern Nevada is $350" an hour, she said.

The Contractors Board has had the authority since 1941 to hire its own lawyer. The money does not come from the state but from fees paid by contractors, Grein noted.

The budget of the contractors board is $6 million a year.

"We watch it pretty close," Grein said.

Sandoval said the law makes the Contractors Board independent, even though it is a state agency.

"We can't do anything until the next Legislature," he said.