Battle over unification costing schools
In 18 months, both districts have spent more than $400,000 in attorney fees
By Michelle Knight knight@theacorn.com

Attorney fees have become a costly expense for the two local school districts as they wrangle for control of area high schools.

Recently acquired payment records show that during an 18month period Pleasant Valley School District and Oxnard Union High School District have spent more than $411,000 combined for legal fees in a long, contentious dispute over whether PVSD will be allowed to include high school students and form a unified school district.

From January 2006 to June 2008 the Pleasant Valley district has spent twice as much as OUHSD on attorney fees.

The kindergartenthrougheighth-grade Pleasant Valley School District paid $275,034 to an attorney with the Sacramento firm Nielsen, Merksamer, Parrinello, Mueller and Naylor.

During that same time, OUHSD shelled out $136,429 to a pair of Sacramento-based law firms, Ochoa and Moore, and Thomas M. Griffin.

Both districts provided copies of the checks made out to their respective attorneys.

The protracted effort to create a Camarillo unified school district gained legal steam in late 2006 when a county committee decided voters should settle the issue. Oxnard Union and a group of Camarillo residents appealed the decision to the California State Board of Education. After a lengthy delay, the state board backed the county group's decision earlier this year but expanded the voting area to the entire high school district. The county committee had limited the voting to only Camarillo and Somis.

Several weeks later, a political action committee filed a restraining order to remove the initiative from the ballot. But a judge in July denied the order, allowing Measure U to appear on the Nov. 4 ballot.

Officials with both districts defended the expense as necessary.

"Have you ever worked with attorneys?" Pleasant Valley Superintendent Luis Villegas said. "It is a costly process."

Villegas said the district needed an attorney to respond to challenges to the county committee's decision. Oxnard Union and the residents argued that taking the mostly white Camarillo and Somis students out of Oxnard Union would promote racial segregation and hurt school programs and finances. The state board disagreed.

"It does drive up the cost, and it's very expensive whenever you . . . get involved in the legal system with any issue," Villegas said.

It was necessary for the district to respond to the charges on behalf of the community, which has shown its support of unification in a survey and by electing proponents to the school board, he said.

"The job that needed to be done was in response to the wish of the community, at least a good chunk of it," Villegas said.

Randy Winton, assistant superintendent of business services for Oxnard Union, said the district had to hire an attorney to protect its interest.

"In my opinion, there is some risk for substantial financial damages in this unification process," Winton said. "We want to make sure that unification doesn't leave us holding the bag."

If a Camarillo unified school district is created, the high school district wants to ensure that it carries its fair share of current and retired teachers' benefits, he said.

And Oxnard is worried that a large number of teachers at Adolfo Camarillo High could decide to stay with the high school district instead of the new unified district, causing personnel "turmoil" for Oxnard Union, Winton said.

Both officials were asked how they justify such large expenses when California schools face statewide budget cuts.

Pleasant Valley eliminated summer school, most of its bus routes and laid off several employees in an attempt to trim nearly $2 million from its budget this year. And the district settled a drawnout salary dispute with its teachers earlier this year and in 2007 closed two schools.

"I believe that the effort and expenditures . . . have not been made in a way that's disrupted services to students or taken away from services to students to provide legal counsel," Villegas said.

This year, Oxnard Union reduced the number of teachers it hired and, for summer school, cut back on the number of classes it offered and increased class sizes.

"It's a necessary cost of business based on the situation," Winton said of the legal expense. "I think it's money well spent to avoid a bigger problem down the line."

Will both districts continue to pay legal fees concerning unification?

"We've budgeted nothing extraordinary for unification," Winton said.

Villegas said the legal expense could come to an end in November because the district has long wanted the issue put before voters. If voters reject creating a K-12 school district, Villegas said he doesn't see the district trying to reverse the vote.

"I don't see us spending any dollars on that," Villegas said. "That's my opinion."

Both school districts provided a copy of their contracts with their attorneys. Pleasant Valley, however, did not provide a copy of the updated agreement it renewed in June with its attorney despite repeated requests for it.

Also in June, Pleasant Valley paid a consultant $11,000 to guide the district into becoming a unified school district should Measure U pass.