Southmoreland board presses solicitor for itemized legal bills, moves to executive session

The Southmoreland School District board pressed its solicitor on September 17 about months of legal invoices that a director said lacked explanation, and the board moved into executive session to discuss negotiations and related privileged items.

An unidentified board member told colleagues the invoices they had received were one-line statements that “just say send us this amount of money” and said the board had paid “$63,390.50” in one line item without an understandable breakdown. The director said they had submitted a Right-to-Know request and received unredacted copies that still left them unclear about the work billed.

Solicitor Mister Lucas said the firm’s bills “are for services performed for the district,” offered to review itemized bills and said some material may be protected by attorney–client privilege. “I have nothing at all to hide,” Lucas told the board and offered to go through individual bills and report back at the next meeting.

Board members debated whether collective-bargaining and negotiation details should be handled in open session. At least one director said personnel and bargaining matters were proper topics for executive session; the chair moved the board into executive session to discuss the last SEIU negotiations and related matters.

The board's finance and budget documents were also a focus: one director said they had filed a Right-to-Know looking at legal costs and requested clarity about general retainer versus non-retainer charges and line-item descriptions such as personnel-related fees, tax-appeal work and grievance expenses. The solicitor said some items would require executive-session discussion and some descriptions on invoices would explain work performed.

No formal action on legal invoices was reported at the meeting; the solicitor said he would review the bills and return with answers next month.