The current board has greatly expanded the use of outside legal counsel, compared to previous boards. Here’s the data:

• In the ’19-20 fiscal year, the district spent $15,608.48 on legal expenses (link).
• In the ’20-21 fiscal year, the district spent $63,532.14 on legal expenses (link). This was the year the district reviewed the charter school application from Merit Academy.
• In the ’21-22 fiscal year, 7 months of which were under this current board, the district replaced legal counsel with Brad Miller’s office and spent $145,872.56 on legal expenses (link1, link2).
• In the ’22-23 fiscal year, the district spent $171,250.21 on legal expenses (link1, link2).

What is the board spending our money on? It’s hard to say, they’re pretty secretive as the attorney invoices get heavily redacted. Here’s one from April of last year. What sort of information is being hidden from us? A bit of insight can be gained by looking at the invoice from May of last year, which is the only one received in unreacted form. That will show you the sort of information the district is choosing to keep secret. Judge for yourself if it’s appropriate. One thing you’ll note is soon after Miller came on, the board started using lawyers to redact CORA requests, something done by district employees previously. That’s just a small portion of overall legal fees, but does raise the question of why the board felt necessary to include lawyers in all of those documentation reviews.