Stringfellow responds to public records request on legal fees

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SK Superintendent of Schools Dr. Kristen Stringfellow

SOUTH KINGSTOWN – The South Kingstown School Department released a response to a public records request regarding legal fees Tuesday afternoon.

The school department provided a summary of legal fees for the past 15 fiscal years.

In the response, Dr. Kristen Stringfellow, superintendent of schools wrote, “The summary takes into account monthly legal fees (contractual), litigation, settlements, arbitration, etc. Certainly some years will show as heavily impacted if contract negotiations were either planned or implemented. Please keep in mind during the comparison that legal fee hourly rates were much lower in the earlier years. If we were to use equivalent dollars today on the 1997 legal rates they would be very much higher today for the same or even less work. Also, please keep in mind that there is a current state and federal context that directly impacts our current legal fees.”

For more information on the public records request, grab your nearest copy of The Narragansett Times.