Central Bucks anticipates Duane Morris will bill $1 million for addressing anti-LGBTQ complaints about the district

The Central Bucks School District is anticipating the Duane Morris law firm will bill $1 million, or more, to address allegations the district has created a hostile environment for LGBTQ students, an administrator said this week.

So far, the firm has only billed the district for November services, the district’s chief of operations, Tara Houser, said during a school board finance committee meeting Wednesday. That bill totaled about $114,000.

But Houser said she was estimating bills of $350,000 to $400,000 a month for the firm’s services in December, January and February. She said she was under the impression that February would be the last of the charges.

Asked whether the firm had given the district an estimate, Houser said it had. “That’s where I came up with around the 300 to 500 a month.”

A district spokesperson didn’t respond to questions Friday about the firm’s costs and how long its services were expected to last. A spokesperson for the firm said it doesn’t comment publicly on client or billing matters.

Central Bucks hired Duane Morris and former U.S. Attorney Bill McSwain in November, following a federal complaint filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania alleging the district had failed to address pervasive harassment of LGBTQ students in its schools, and had worsened the situation by adopting discriminatory policies. The U.S. Department of Education opened an investigation into the complaint.

In an agreement for legal services dated Nov. 1 and signed by the district’s superintendent and school board president, McSwain — who as a Republican candidate for governor criticized a West Chester school’s Gender Sexuality Alliance as “leftist political indoctrination” — said he would bill the district $940 an hour, while a second attorney, Michael Rinaldi, would bill $640 an hour. McSwain said he expected Rinaldi would bill more hours than he, and noted both rates “are at a discount to our normal hourly rates.”

Discussion of the firm’s costs arose during Wednesday’s meeting as Houser gave a presentation on the district’s budget forecast, and Democratic school board members asked about Duane Morris. While the district had budgeted $2.4 million for administrative services for 2022-23, it now estimates spending more than $3.4 million.

Houser said most of the increase could be attributed to Duane Morris. (Across its budget as a whole, the district is projecting a surplus.)

The district’s administrative services budget also includes costs for the Devine+Partners public relations firm, which was hired last year but cut ties with the district last month after receiving “targeted harassment” from community members, according to the district.

The firm billed the district just under $144,000 for nine months of work, according to WHYY — which reported that the firm began billing the district last May, though the board didn’t vote to hire the firm until July. Duane Morris also began billing the district before the board voted on the firm’s hire, according to WHYY.

A district spokesperson didn’t respond to questions about WHYY’s reporting, or to how much of Duane Morris’s costs might be covered by the district’s insurer.

The ACLU complaint was filed on behalf of seven students whose names and personal stories are redacted from the 72-page document; attorneys have said the redactions are to protect the students. The district, which has called on the ACLU and U.S. Department of Education to release the names, said in December that the refusal to do so was “increasing the complexity of the Duane Morris investigation and forcing additional legal costs.”