Expenses Vary By District, With Personnel Layoffs and Negotiations Contributing To Many of the Increases.
Above: Manpower, junior size. Nobody played hookey the day teacher Doris Jordan at Jamison Elementary School explained how every pupil can help win the war. These Roanoke, Virginia youngsters, along with some thirty million other young Americans, are being mobilized into the nation’s newest home front fighters, the junior army, to collect scrap for ammunition. October 1942. Photographer: Howard Liberman. Library of Congress.
As reported by Jennifer Bonnett in a March 26, 2011 post in the Lodi News-Sentinel, a State of California report of legal fees for fiscal year 2009-2010 showed an interesting comparison of what was incurred by different school districts throughout California. Here is what this picture looks like:
Agency Annual Enrollment/Population Cost
Lodi Unified 30,942 $1.9 million
Galt Jt. Union High 2,292 $134,872
Sacramento City 47,890 $1.8 million
Galt Jt. Union Elementary 4,122 $100,000
Lincoln Unified 8,783 $156,601
Archoe 440 $6,407
L.A Unified (2004-05;
in-house counsel only) 670,745 $9.5 million
City of Lodi (in-house
counsel only) 61,451 $468,150
Oak View 420 $657
Stockton Unified 38,141 N/A
However, fee comparisons are different as between districts. The cost per student for Lodi Unified exceeds any other in the area and is almost three times as expensive as legal costs in neighboring Galt Joint Union Elementary School District. On average, Lodi Unified spends $61.41 annually per student on legal feels, compared to $24.26 in the Galt elementary school district and $58.84 for Galt’s high school district.
Attorney’s fees have gone up for many districts because of accelerating personnel costs related to layoffs and negotiations. For example, the Galt high school district spent about $135,000 in legal services last year compared to a combined $128,000 the previous years. Galt elementary school districts costs went up from $65,000 in 2008-2009 to $100,000 in 2009-2010. Lincoln Unified also saw a slight increase, from spending $147,980 on outside legal counsel in 2008-2009 to $156,601 last school year. Sacramento City Unified, which serves more students than Lodi, spent $1.8 million on outside attorneys last fiscal year ($100,000 less than Lodi), but a $300,000 increase from the previous year. However, Archohe school district, in the tiny Sacramento County of Herald, broke the trend: spending a little over $6,400 on legal services last year as compared to $17,625 the previous year. Oak View Union School District, in Acampo, also spent a paltry $657 last year, compared to $9,100 the previous years (although it has fewer than 500 students). Oak View, to date this school year, has expended $7,000.