Duane Morris billed Central Bucks $1.75 million to address anti-LGBTQ complaints

The Duane Morris law firm has billed the Central Bucks School District $1.75 million since it was hired in November 2022 to address complaints about the district’s treatment of LGBTQ students, according to a report confirmed by a school board member.

The bill total was reported by the Bucks County Courier Times Friday. Karen Smith, a Democrat who was recently reelected to the board, confirmed the amount.

While the district has insurance, it has only covered a portion of the expense: $250,000, Smith said.

The bills come as Smith and newly elected Democrats prepare to take the majority on the board Monday after sweeping Republicans in last month’s election. Their election followed a fraught two years of GOP control and partisan battles, including around allegations the district created a hostile environment for LGBTQ students.

The total is a “truly horrifying amount of money,” said Smith, who said she plans to review the bills. “There are so many other things we could have done with that money, and what good came of this expense?”

Despite the Democratic wins, the battles are continuing: Lame-duck Republican board leaders refused to place motions requested by the Democrats on the agenda for Monday’s meeting, according to Smith — meaning the new board will move to amend the agenda on the spot.

And a recount instigated by Republicans took place Friday in three school board races, though it didn’t change who won.

Here’s what to know about the ongoing disputes:

Central Bucks owes hundreds of thousands of dollars to Duane Morris, the firm the GOP-led school board hired last year after the ACLU filed a federal complaint accusing the district of anti-LGBTQ actions. Lawyers from the firm, including former U.S. Attorney Bill McSwain, conducted an internal investigation that concluded there was no pattern of unaddressed bullying in the district.

Instead, as it unveiled its findings in April, Duane Morris accused a Central Bucks teacher and Democrats of “weaponizing” the LGBTQ allegations against the board majority.

The district has paid Duane Morris $614,000 already, according to the Courier Times, which Smith confirmed Friday. (Last year, the firm said that McSwain would bill the district at a rate of $940 an hour, while a second former federal prosecutor, Michael Rinaldi, would do more of the work at a rate of $640 an hour.)

But for months this year, the firm didn’t bill the district — with bills finally arriving around last month’s school board meeting, Smith said, after the election had been won by Democrats.

A Duane Morris spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Smith expects the checks will be on the board’s agenda Monday — but isn’t sure, because she wasn’t involved in setting it.

Republicans who have controlled the board the last two years but will no longer be on it as of Monday decided what to place on the meeting agenda, Smith said.

The board’s president, Dana Hunter, did not respond to a request for comment Friday.

That means Democrats are going to move to amend the agenda on the spot, Smith said, requesting the addition of several items — including a motion to authorize the board’s new lawyer to challenge the legality of the $700,000 separation agreement the GOP board awarded last month to superintendent Abram Lucabaugh, who immediately resigned.

Smith said Democrats also plan to suspend the most controversial policies of the past couple years — including the prohibition on “sexualized content” in library books, which led to the removal of Gender Queer and This Book is Gay from library shelves, and spurred challenges of 60 other books.

Other policies she said they plan to suspend include the ban on staff “advocacy,” including the display of Pride flags in classrooms, and the recently passed ban on transgender students playing on sports teams aligned with their gender identities. Smith said Democrats intend to send those measures back to the board’s policy committee.

Democrats also plan to drop the board’s recent appeal of a judge’s redistricting decision that chose a voting map put forward by a citizens’ group, which had accused the GOP board of seeking to gerrymander the district through a different proposed map.

“Clearly there’s a period where one board is going out, another board is coming in. We should be working together,” Smith said. But “that is not happening.”

Meanwhile, the Bucks County Board of Elections conducted recounts of three of the five Central Bucks school board races Friday — responding to petitions filed in court by Republican voters challenging the results.

The new results changed the final tally for each race, but didn’t change the outcomes: Each of the three Democrats in question had won by hundreds of votes. While Republicans gained some votes as a result of the recount, so did Democrats. In what had been the narrowest win, Heather Reynolds’ margin of victory over Hunter increased by 3 votes, to 299.

Pennsylvania law doesn’t require petitioners to present evidence of any error in order to be entitled to a recount, said David Conn, the lawyer representing the Democrats.

For that reason, Conn said, Democrats filed an emergency motion with the Bucks County Court of Common Pleas Thursday asking a judge to order the recount: County officials had said they wouldn’t certify the election results without it, leaving the new board’s ability to be seated Monday in limbo.

By Friday afternoon, however, the results were certified.