Legal expenses lie close to the heart of the public anger in the Coughlin and Bouris cases. Fueled by comments in the last campaign for School Committee that the tab would near $1 million, what has been spent so far?

To answer that, YourArlington asked the schools' chief financial officer for a total spent since June 2007, when the case began.

Diane Fisk Johnson, the CFO, responded with a spreadsheet that shows legal expenses have added up to $518,547 from July 1, 2007, to Oct. 30, 2009. In the same period, the total spent on cases involving fired teacher Chuck Coughlin and Stavroula Bouris, the Ottoson principal who was also dismissed in August 2007, was $444,941. The spreadsheet does not include numbers for June 2007. See the spreadsheet, a .PDF file, here >>

The $73,646 difference between the two totals lies in the fact that the schools' longtime legal counsel -- Stoneman, Chandler & Miller, LLC -- represented the district in other cases.

The lion's share of the spending over the 2 1/2-year period paid bills ranging from an investigation of inappropriate e-mails to a court challenge seeking to keep the e-mails from the public to costs involved in Coughlin's 18-month arbitration case as well as Bouris's, which began in January.

The schools, prodded by School Committee members Denise Burns and Joseph Curran, have previously released expense total in the cases. For example, one release occurred in May 2008 and resulted in the story "Legal fees in Ottoson case add up to $185,600."

But this is the first accounting that lists specific charges.

For example, $11,228 was paid to Electronic Evidence Recovery of Tiverton, R.I. The company helps "attorneys and other investigators obtain and use" computer data appropriately, according to its Web site.

Founder and President Tom Galligan has not responded to an Oct. 31 request for comment about what services his company provided for $9,281 billed in November 2008 and $1,947 billed in September 2009.

The expense listing shows reimbursements to "Mazzola" in April and June 2008 totaling $409.31. That is probably Steve Mazzola, who was head of technology for the town and schools until the summer of 2008, when he left for a similar position in Belmont. He has not responded to an Oct. 31 request to explain what the reimbursements covered.

Main share of legal expenses

These are small amounts compared to totals racked up by Stoneman, Chandler & Miller. For example, $217,250 in nonretainer fees were paid in fiscal 2008. Of that, $207,936 were related to Coughlin and Bouris.

The amounts reflected in the spreadsheet show money that has already been paid. Those who are angry about these amounts often imagine much larger numbers, based on lawsuits that have only been threatened.

Last March, Frank Mondano, the attorney for Coughlin and Bouris put Arlington on notice of a possible civil suit. In an effort to head that off, Town Manager Brian Sullivan has urged interim Superintendent Bodie to appeal the arbitrator's decision reinstating Coughlin. On Nov. 3, the School Committee voted, 5-0-2, to follow that advice.

Sullivan's letter included language undercutting anger about legal expenses. He wrote that the parties would seek a settlement and that Stoneman Chandler attorney Kay Hodge would handle the appeal for free.

Even so, the costs are expected to continue.

Richard G. Boulanger of Grafton, the arbitrator in the 18-month case involving Coughlin, issued a bill for his services dated Oct. 27, the day his decision to reinstate Coughlin was made. The bill for $16,500 covered 22 hearings dates ranging from Sept. 3 through Oct. 26, which were for the Bouris case. The Coughlin case ended July 15. The $16,500 is to be split equally between the union and the employer and paid within 30 days. The employer in this case is named as Hodge. The union is not named.

Ronald Colosi Jr., president of the Arlington Education Association, was asked Nov. 11 whether the AEA is paying that share. He has not responded.

In this, and in any case in which a response has not been received by the time of initial publication, comments may be added later.

Twists, turns led to accounting

Johnson was first asked about a current accounting of legal expenses on Oct. 15. Three days later, she promised to respond.

The same day, on Oct. 18, The Boston Globe published a story headlined "Town amasses $500k in legal bills," an account that sharply spurred public anger, reflected in numerous posts to the Arlington e-mail list.

After hearing from a lawyer at Stoneman Chandler, complaining about The Globe report, YourArlington updated the issues with a story headlined "School's law firm says bills $127K less than Globe reported." It reports numbers that are closer to those provided by CFO Johnson.

Later, in attempting to get the latest figures from Johnson, YourArlington suggested this: Perhaps the simplest way to get the information requested was to update a spreadsheet reflecting legal expenses that Joe Tully discussed in a post to the Arlington e-mail list on Sept. 18. He had sought a full accounting of fees in June.

A Town Meeting member who has been critical of the School Committee's law firm, Tully did not respond to a request from YourArlington to republish his comments to the e-mail list or to share the information.

On Monday, Oct. 26, Johnson wrote that she was able to locate spreadsheet kept by former CFO Sue Mazzarella, but it "had not been updated since June." (It may be that Tully had received a different spreadsheet than the one Mazzarella kept.)

Johnson said she assigned the task to update the spreadsheet she had found to a person who first had to process a list of paid bills before the Oct. 27 School Committee meeting. Johnson provided the latest numbers Oct. 30.

Asked whether any of the charges were tied to Stoneman, Chandler's annual retainers, Johnson wrote Nov. 3, "Based on my review, the FY08 retainer was $40,000 and Bouris/Coughlin expenses were not taken from any retainers, but billed and paid separately."

This story was first published Wed., Nov. 11, 2009.