Legal bills for the Arlington public schools since June 2007 have totaled $443,380, about $127,000 less than The Boston Globe reported on Sunday, Oct. 18, a lawyer for the schools' firm said Wednesday, Oct. 21. Geoffrey R. Bok of Stoneman Chandler & Miller, said he expected the newspaper to correct the error.

The Oct. 18 Globe report says the majority of the bills, which were obtained through a public-records request, relate to the 2007 cases of fired teacher Chuck Coughlin and principal Stavroula Bouris. The report, which covers the period from June 1, 2007, to Sept. 1, does not provide an exact accounting of how much is attributed to these cases.

YourArlington requested last week a full accounting of legal bills in these cases from June 2007 to the present, a broader period than in the The Globe story.

Diane Fisk Johnson, the schools' chief financial officer, wrote in an e-mail Oct. 18 that she would provide a spreadsheet detailing these costs. After it is received, its contents will be reported.

The Globe report by Christina Pazzanese said that from June 1, 2007, through Sept. 1, Arlington schools have has been billed for more than $571,000, covering close to 3,000 hours of legal work, by the Boston firm Stoneman, Chandler & Miller LLP.

But, Bok said Oct. 21, the number does not take into account a 25-percent discount that Stoneman gives the Arlington schools, a factor that brings the bill total to $443,380. That is $127,620 less than the number The Globe reported.

He said that the reporter knew about the lower amount and that she told him that the figure, after the editing process, was left out of the final story.

Coughlin says he was wrongfully terminated by then-Superintendent Nate Levenson and is seeking to have an arbitrator award him back pay and benefits, and give him back his old job, according to The Globe report, which paraphrases his lawyer, Frank Mondano.

A decision in the Coughlin arbitration is now expected Nov. 2. Mondano also represents Bouris in a separate arbitration that began last January but is not close to a resolution.

Mondano said his two clients are contemplating a civil lawsuit, The Globe reported. Since the story broke in July 2007, Mondano has not provided a comment to YourArlington, nor has School Committee Chairman Joseph Curran.