At any given moment, any local government could be facing a number of legal issues that are big or small, common or obscure. So an article promising to totally prepare managers for an uncertain future can only underdeliver.

This article aims to inform on legal issues managers should know about because they will affect local governments universally—federal regulations—or because they are too big to ignore, even if they won't affect every city and county in the United States.

Sign Codes and Panhandling Ordinances

It might not be obvious what signs and panhandling have in common, but they were both significantly affected by the Supreme Court's 2015 decision in Reed v. Town of Gilbert, Arizona. According to a 2016 federal court opinion: "Reed represents a drastic change in First Amendment jurisprudence."

The Court held for the first time that content-based regulations are subject to strict scrutiny—meaning they are almost always legally fatal. Almost all sign codes contain content-based regulations. Also, the Court adopted a broader definition of content-based regulation than it had in the past. "Government regulation of speech is content based if a law applies to particular speech because of the topic discussed or the idea or message expressed."

Most sign codes contain content-based regulations as the term is understood in Reed. For example, the city of Norfolk, Virginia's definition of a sign excluded flags and works of art not related to a product or service. Before Reed, a federal appeals court held that this definition wasn't content based. After Reed, the same court concluded it was content based.

So following Reed, most local governments need to update their sign codes; however, Reed doesn't just apply to sign codes. Lower courts have held content-based restrictions that governments impose on speech, including laws that ban voters from taking ballot selfies and laws where candidates pretend to be incumbents, are now also subject to strict scrutiny.

Local governments are seeing the effects of Reed in the case of ordinances that limit panhandling. Lower courts have consistently struck down these ordinances following Reed. After all, panhandling is speech and these ordinances only ban one type of speech.

Fair Housing Act Lawsuits

It is a strange case where local governments are suing someone else rather than being sued themselves. At least 12 cities and counties have sued banks over "reverse-redlining." In Wells Fargo v. City of Miami (http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/wells-fargo-co-v-city-of-miami) and Bank of America v. City of Miami (http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/bank-of-america-corp-v-city-of-miami), the Supreme Court will either rule that these lawsuits may continue or must stop.

Miami claims that Wells Fargo and Bank of America targeted African American and Latino customers in the city for predatory loans that carried more risk, steeper fees, and higher costs than those offered to identically situated Caucasian customers. The city further claims the banks' lending policies caused minority-owned property to fall into unnecessary or premature foreclosure.

The FHA makes it unlawful for banks to discriminate against mortgage recipients on the basis of race. To bring a lawsuit under FHA, Miami must have statutory standing; in other words, "a cause of action under the statute." The lower court ruled that Miami has standing to sue the banks.

New Overtime Regulations

According to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), white-collar or bona fide executive, administrative, or professional employees do not have to be paid overtime if they work more than 40 hours a week. Department of Labor (DOL) regulations adopted shortly after FLSA was adopted in 1938 state that employees must perform specific duties and earn a certain salary to be exempt from overtime as a white-collar employee.

On May 23, 2016, the DOL issued final rules nearly doubling the previous salary level test from $23,660 a year to $47,476 a year. The final regulations also automatically update the salary level every three years. The final rule is expected to extend overtime protections to more than four million workers.

At the time this article was written, more than 20 states had sued DOL, seeking an injunction preventing the rules from taking effect on December 1, 2016. Among other things, states argue that the U.S. Supreme Court should overturn the 1985 case Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority, which held that FLSA applies to state and local governments.

Website Accessibility Regulations

In May 2016, Department of Justice (DOJ) released a Supplemental Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (SANPRM) asking for comments on the "potential application of technical requirements" to make state and local government websites accessible per Title II of the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA).

DOJ's current regulations did not include specific requirements for web accessibility, but DOJ has long held the position that Title II covers public entities' websites.

Among many other things, DOJ is contemplating adopting WCAG 2.0 (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines), created by the World Wide Web Consortium, an international community where the public collaborates to develop web standards.

WCAG 2.0 has three levels of accessibility: A, AA, and AAA. These standards cover such topics as keyboard navigability; text enlargement; minimum contrast ratios; limiting the use of color; text descriptions for audio, images, and headings; video captioning; and more.

DOJ is contemplating adopting the AA standard (except live video captioning) to take effect within two years of promulgating the final rule. For live captioning, DOJ suggests three years.

The State and Local Legal Center (SLLC), the International City/County Management Association (ICMA), and other national organizations submitted comments to DOJ explaining how state and local governments would be impacted by this change.

The comments recommend that at this point, compliance with web accessibility standards should be voluntary for all state and local governments. To the extent the DOJ mandates compliance with a set standard, the comments suggest a tiered approach is warranted, which grants sufficient time for technology and support infrastructure to advance.

An indefinite exception with compliance is also recommended for smaller governments representing less than 200,000 people. For public entities that do not qualify for an exemption based on population, revenue, staffing, and budgetary constraints should be considered in a process for granting special exceptions for public entities that are overly burdened by the compliance standards.

Only time will tell what final web accessibility regulations DOJ adopts.

"Debtor's Prison" Lawsuits

Officer Darren Wilson's shooting of Michael Brown in 2014 led to a DOJ investigation of the Ferguson, Missouri, police department. The first sentence of the DOJ report noted that the primary goal of Ferguson's municipal court system was not "administering justice or protecting the rights of the accused, but of maximizing revenue."

The report went on to describe a "debtor's prison" system where Ferguson assessed high fines for minor offenses without determining a defendant's ability to pay. If the defendant missed a payment, a warrant was issued for his or her arrest. If he or she was caught, he or she was likely to be incarcerated.

The Supreme Court has repeatedly stated that before courts convert unpaid criminal fines into jail time they must make a reasonable inquiry into the defendant's ability to pay. Defendants must make "all reasonable efforts to pay," including seeking work and borrowing money. If they still can't pay, they may not be automatically imprisoned without considering alternative means of punishing them.

Since the Ferguson report was issued, debtor's prison cases have been brought against local governments in at least 12 states. Claims include that municipal courts failed to determine indigency, failed to tell defendants they could request an indigency determination, and failed to consider alternative punishments.

It is noteworthy that even if a municipal court is, in effect, operating a debtor's prison, the local government may not be liable. In March 2016, for example, a federal district court in Texas dismissed a debtor's prison case against the city of Austin, Texas. The case involved a single mother of seven who was jailed for two weeks because she could not pay traffic tickets without her ability to pay being determined.

Local governments can only be liable where they cause the constitutional violation, the court reasoned. Here a municipal judge acting in a judicial capacity caused the constitutional violation.

Walker v. City of Calhoun, Georgia, is a case to watch as it possibly heads to the Supreme Court. Maurice Walker was arrested for being a pedestrian under the influence, could not afford the $160 cash bond, and was jailed for 11 days before he could see a judge.

The issue in the case is whether an arrestee can be jailed temporarily because he or she cannot afford bail. The Supreme Court has never decided an indigency-based claim in the bail context.

Changes on the Horizon

When President-elect Donald Trump takes office, different regulatory and enforcement priorities will be devised and put into action. When the Supreme Court acquires a ninth justice and new justices in years to come, the Court may change direction on issues affecting local governments.

So new legal trends and hot issues will continue to emerge. For now, keep your eyes on these issues as they unfold in your communities and in courts across the country.