Marshall adjusts transfer case fees
A federal judge said Tuesday that the state has to pay the Jacksonville/North Pulaski School District $13,224 in legal fees.
U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. also ruled that the state must pay $6,025 in legal fees to the attorneys for the black students known as the Joshua intervenors in the case. The ruling came nearly two weeks after the state attorney general's office asked Marshall to scale back the fees awarded to the school district and get rid of those to the Joshua intervenors.
The legal fees stem from the Jacksonville/North Pulaski district's successful challenge to a state-approved interdistrict student transfer. On Aug. 8, Marshall said the state Board of Education has to honor the Jacksonville district's claim to be exempt from participating in the Arkansas School Choice Act student transfers, as laid out as part of a January 2014 settlement agreement in the desegregation case.
The August ruling overturned the state Education Board's July 14 decision to allow a student to transfer from the Jacksonville district, where she lived, to the Cabot School District.
The Jacksonville school district got the full amount it requested. The Joshua intervenors had asked for $10,087 in state-paid fees for attorneys and a paralegal, but instead will get nearly three-fifths of that amount.
"The defense was important to the Court in addressing the attempted transfer," Marshall wrote in an order. "The State is right, though, that the fee requested is too much. A full and spirited defense from Joshua did not require three lawyers and a paralegal. One lawyer, with assistance from a paralegal, would have been sufficient."
Bonuses for staff on board's agenda
The Jacksonville/North Pulaski School District will look into whether it can fund one-time bonuses for its employees.
Superintendent Tony Wood said he still did not think the district could afford pay raises, but he asked School Board members if they wanted to review options for one-time bonuses. The School Board unanimously agreed that it wanted to look at the options.
District administrators will take two or three choices to the School Board at its November meeting. If the School Board decides to give the bonuses, it will decide when to give them.
Wood noted that state laws require bonuses to be equal in nature for all employees. As an example, he said, "if we define a workday at six hours, and it was a three-hour employee, then you would be talking about 0.5 in regard to a bonus."
Even if the bonuses are equal in amount, the net gain would be different per employee because of salary schedules, he added.
Metro on 10/09/2016