Schools

Legal Services Policy Passes First Reading

Board members still question policy parameters, however.

 

Revisions to the district’s legal services policy, were approved during the policy’s first reading Jan. 24, though board members again questioned portions of the policy.

The policy, which was sent back to the Policy Committee at its Dec. 20 meeting, involves the review of legal bills after the state-set limit has been met.  Initially, the policy named the Finance Committee with the charge of reviewing the bills.  However, the process and the process for distributing legal opinions did not sit well with board members.

Find out what's happening in Hillsboroughwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The original first reading, lost during a vote at the Dec. 20 meeting.

For board member Judy Haas, revisions to the policy had her questioning the reasons the district has a policy-writing firm, Strauss Esmay Associates, LLP, if it changes portions of the policies outside of the firm’s changes.  While Strauss Esmay’s changes to policies are legal, changes made by the board might not be, she said.

Find out what's happening in Hillsboroughwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

“In this policy, there are some conditions that are not part of the Strauss Esmay policy because other districts that utilize Strauss Esmay don’t have any of these matters in their policies,” Haas said.  “So I guess the question that I would have on that would relate to that is, why do we have a service called Strauss Esmay which drafts policies for us that are certified as to their legality because that’s what the policy service does.”

According to Superintendent Jorden Schiff, much of the language in the legal policy was specific to the Hillsborough School District.

Haas was also concerned that having the Assistant Business Administrator review legal bills would violate the chain of command.  The situation could be awkward for the Assistant Business Administrator as well, since the position is underneath the Business Administrator and Superintendent posts—meaning the Assistant Business Administrator would review his bosses’ legal bills.

The district is required to have someone review the bills once the state’s limit has been met, to ensure the district is not overbilled or under billed for any services.

“The purpose of the Assistant Business Administrator to review this is not to review the data for substantive, whether the superintendent should or should not have contacted the attorney,” District Superintendent Jorden Schiff said.  “It is to make sure the log that we are required to maintain matches the bill that we are being charged with.”

In addition, several paragraphs that were added to the legal services policy were added at the request of board members, according to Policy Committee Chairman Marc Rosenberg.

“We struggled with the language, which was reviewed by our attorney, to be legal,” Rosenberg said.  “Actually, they did not change any of the words.  This addresses the requirement that, if you go to the board’s attorney for a legal question, the board has a right to know what the opinion of the attorney is.”

If you choose to go to a board member’s attorney or your own attorney, that matter, of course, is private,” he added.  “But if you choose to go to our attorney, since the district is expending money for the legal opinion, the Policy Committee and the Administration felt that the board has a right to know what that opinion is.”

In certain cases, portions of the legal opinion would need to be redacted from the information the board receives, he added.   The district’s administration would develop the guidelines for those cases.

Since the Assistant Business Administrator is the only member of the administration who cannot contact the district attorney, the Policy Committee determined the person in that position should review the legal bills.

“He is the only one not authorized to go to the attorney, therefore, he was the logical one to review the bills,” Rosenberg said.

The policy does not preclude any other committee, particularly the Finance Committee, from reviewing the legal bills; the policy does not specifically charge any board committee with the task. 

Previously, board member Neil Hudes, who is on the Finance Committee, stated he was unclear on the reasons that committee should review the bills and what they would look for.

“We didn’t feel it was our place to develop a policy to review the bills until the Finance Committee weighed in with their opinion on that,” Rosenberg said.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here