Page 4 THE VILLADOM TIMES I • December 17, 2014 FLOW Area Regional school district addresses legal costs by Frank J McMahon At a recent Ramapo Indian Hills Regional Board of Education meeting, Frank Ceurvels, the school district’s business administrator, presented an overview of the district’s legal costs during the past few years. Although legal costs since the 2012- 13 school year have been decreasing steadily, according to Ceurvels, in the 2012-13 fiscal year the district’s legal costs amounted to $61 per pupil, which exceeded 130 percent of the 2012-13 statewide per-pupil average of $49. In circumstances where a school district’s legal costs exceed 130 percent of the statewide average per pupil amount, state law, the school district’s bylaw, and the 2011-12 audit program recommend that those school districts establish and implement certain procedures and con- trols enumerated in state law in an effort to reduce legal costs. A resolution concerning legal costs was approved by the school board and, according to that resolution, the school district has already implemented cer- tain procedures and controls enumer- ated in state law in an effort to reduce legal costs. Those procedures include the limitation of the number of contact persons with the authority to request services or advice from legal counsel to the following designated contact per- sons: the superintendent of schools or his or her designee, the school business administrator/board secretary, the board president, and the district supervisor of special services. The resolution points out that the designated contact persons ensure that contracted legal counsel is not used unnecessarily for management deci- sions or readily available information contained in district materials such as policies, administrative regulations, or guidance available through professional source materials. In addition, the reso- lution states that the excess legal costs incurred over the past few years have been the result of a high volume of litiga- tion, grievances, protracted negotiations, and due process hearings initiated against the district, which the school district has been compelled to defend. Therefore, the school board determined that the imple- mentation of further procedures accord- ing to state law that are beyond those already implemented would not signifi- cantly reduce legal costs, since those excess costs were incurred as a result of a high volume of litigation over which the district has no control. Some of those legal costs were incurred during the 2012-13 school year when the district was involved in an extended legal dispute about the retire- ment compensation of former superin- tendent Paul Saxton. That matter was settled in March 2012. During that time, the district was also involved in a six-year legal dispute about the district’s proposed regulation on student conduct away from school grounds. That dispute was ended by a state Supreme Court decision to deny a petition by the attorney for the regional school district to review the July 2012 decision of the Appellate Division of Superior Court, which affirmed the finding of then acting Commissioner of Education Rochelle Hendricks that the regulation exceeded the authority con- ferred on local school boards to regulate student conduct under state law. Prior to that, the district was involved in a 12-year legal dispute with the Bergen County Academies over the requirement that the school district must pay tuition and transportation costs for students from the district who are accepted to, and attend, the Bergen County Academies. That legal dispute was ended in August 2009 with a monetary agreement between the two parties and an agree- ment that the RIH school district would, beginning in the 2009-10 school year, begin to pay all tuition charges for RIH students who are accepted for enrollment in the BC Academies as required by law, and will arrange for the transportation of those students and pay the full cost of that transportation.