NJ 21st Team on Substack: "Budget Snapshot on Legal Costs- This area was a rather confusing one to figure out. Let's start with the Berkeley Heights 2021-2022 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR). According to this source, our District spent ~157,000 on legal services. Dividing that total amount b…"

Notes

April 27, 2023

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Budget Snapshot on Legal Costs- This area was a rather confusing one to figure out. Let's start with the Berkeley Heights 2021-2022 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR). According to this source, our District spent ~157,000 on legal services. Dividing that total amount by the number of students for that year (~2600 students according to this year's advertised budget). This would bring our per-pupil cost to about $60 per student.

The $60 per pupil cost is nearly double what is indicated for that specific year on the 2023 advertised budget ($36 per pupil) and, if the real number, would put Berkeley Heights at the very top of the list on the table of schools we've posted with a lot of room between ourselves and the other Districts.

So if we go by the number from the Advertised budget, our legal costs don't vary that much from other Districts despite significant increases (again, not a goal to shoot for when we are talking about increased spending). However, if you were to go by the number on the ACFR, we would be significantly higher than the other Districts on the table.

One thought that came to mind is that perhaps the Districts liability insurance reimbursed these costs. If that's the case, the dollars spent are still the dollars spent and should apply to the threshold. I would also have questions on how this would affect the amount of money the District pays for coverage and its ability to secure coverage in the future if the trend continues.

Legal costs remain a mystery as the District still needs to answer questions on how much the District has paid in defending the Superintendent's now admitted violation of the District's nepotism policy. We also don't have clarity on the cost of the District funded ethics complaint against a former BOE member that has backfired and resulted in three ethics complaints against the BOE that are now in front of the OAL or the cost of the ethics complaint filed against the BOE President for the LTE written on the Budget last year. Lastly, the public is not aware of how much the District spends in having Attorneys redact information from OPRA requests- this year saw multiple lawsuits against the District on this issue - in fact, one of the bodies of documents that appears to be improperly redacted are - you guessed it- legal bills.

This is all important to clarify, not just because we would want to know what we are spending and not just because our costs have increased ~ 90% in this area but also because there is a threshold that, if met, would require the District to apply a higher level of oversight over its legal spending.