Elementary School District 97 has spent $14,634 on lawyers related to Oak Park and River Forest High School’s lawsuit against village hall, claiming the village owes the high school $3.3 million. District 97 was added as a defendant in the suit last month.
The bulk of the legal fees, however, came from a period before the high school’s lawsuit was even filed, according to records obtained by Wednesday Journal from District 97.
The firm of Hodges, Loizzi, Eisenhammer, Rodick & Kohn tallied 45.5 hours of “pre-lawsuit” legal costs between June 4 and Dec. 15, 2009. At $265 an hour, the law firm pulled in about $12,119 in fees.
Its heaviest period of work was July 2009, when lawyers tallied 16 hours or $4,271 in costs. Work included reviewing TIF documents, phone conferences, attending board meetings, preparing statements and listening to old board meeting tapes.
Since the lawsuit was filed in February 2010, District 97’s lawyers have tallied 9.7 billable hours, or $2,514 in fees. That work included reviewing and responding to the complaint, phone conferences, attending a board meeting and reviewing documents.
Legal bills from June and July are not yet available.
In February, the high school sued the village, seeking some $3.3 million from the downtown Oak Park tax increment financing (TIF) district. District 200 alleges it is owed the money under the terms of a 2003 agreement to extend the TIF’s life to 2018. The village has said it owes the high school $1.79 million in TIF funds. OPRF amended its complaint last month to include District 97 as a defendant, since both school districts signed the 2003 agreement.
All together, the three taxing bodies have spent $102,476 in legal fees, though District 97 was the only one of the three that included “pre-lawsuit” costs in its response to a Freedom of Information Act request from Wednesday Journal. None of the three taxing bodies have yet tallied costs for June or July.
Village hall clarified last week that it has spent the $81,517 on lawyers in the lawsuit, using money from the downtown TIF – a fund created by freezing property taxes at a certain level and using future tax revenues above that amount for development and infrastructure projects in a designated area.
Oak Park laid off a deputy police chief recently, saying that it needed to do something to respond to unexpected costs from the lawsuit, along expenses for cleaning up after recent storms.
In an interview last week, Village Manager Tom Barwin said that Oak Park was not paying Deputy Chief Carl Leidy’s salary out of the TIF. Village hall’s problem is cash flow, he said, having basically no fund balance and no emergency dollars on hand to respond to unexpected expenses, such as the lawsuit.
Cheryl Witham, chief financial officer for OPRF, said Monday that she had no comment on village hall’s finances. In its complaint, the high school has asked for a detailed accounting of TIF expenditures, alleging that the village has improperly spent them over the years.
CONTACT: mstempniak@wjinc.com