ROCKLAND, Maine — The financially-strapped Rockland-area school district has spent nearly $150,000 on lawyers during the past 10 months.
Regional School Unit 13 provided a detailed breakdown of its payments to the law firm of Drummond Woodsum in Portland since July 1, 2013, at the request of the Bangor Daily News.
The report showed that RSU 13 has paid the firm $148,031.
The largest portion of that money went for legal work on personnel matters. That line accounted for $79,931.
The next largest category of legal spending was for negotiations with St. George on its withdrawal from RSU 13. The district has spent $26,101 on that issue.
Another $23,861 was spent on labor negotiations.
The remainder went for various issues such as special education matters, according to the report.
RSU 13 board Chairman Steve Roberts acknowledged that it definitely was a lot of money.
“Sometimes the board has no choice but to involve attorneys,” Roberts said.
He said the duty of the board is to protect the district and that is what it has done during the past year.
Roberts expects that with the hiring of a new superintendent, the district will have a honeymoon period between its administration and school board. The past year has seen the board and superintendent at odds, leading to the resignation in February of Lew Collins as superintendent. The board also held a disciplinary hearing for Business Manager Scott Vaitones before the two parties reached a settlement allowing Vaitones to return to work until his contract expires June 30.
Roberts said that the board is scheduled to vote Thursday evening on a new labor contract with the teachers union. Negotiations took place through much of the past year.
The district must still negotiate with support staff and administrators, but Roberts expects those also will be settled.
And in terms of the negotiations with St. George, he said progress is being made, and he expects an agreement in time for the town to hold a referendum in November.
Other than that, Roberts expects little need for the district to spend money on legal fees.
“I’m not aware of any smoldering issues that will require us to use an attorney,” he said.
The school district budget goes for a yes-or-no vote at the polls on June 10 in Rockland, Thomaston, St. George, Owls Head, South Thomaston and Cushing.
The budget cuts one elementary foreign language teacher, one library media position at the kindergarten through seventh grades, a South School social worker, an industrial technology educational technician and an administrative assistant at Oceanside High School West. The district also is reorganizing its administration with one fewer position resulting from the changes.
Even with those cuts, the district will need to collect an additional 4 percent in property taxes to offset declining revenues.