THUNDER BAY — The Lakehead District Public School's legal expenses escalated dramatically in the last fiscal year, partly due to a series of threats against Hammarskjold High School.
"It was quite a spike from previous years," said Ian MacRae, the board's director of education.
Legal costs last year totalled $443,000, a 64 per cent increase over the previous year.
During the previous nine years, statistics compiled by the school board show its average annual legal expenses were only $256,000.
MacRae said legal costs vary considerably from year to year, but "last year was particularly awkward in that a lot of things happened at the same time."
Most legal expenses are related to labour relations issues, he said.
"It's right across the employee groups and it usually has to do with collective agreement issues. If we terminate someone, impose different suspensions on people, the unions or the federations don't accept that without a bit of a battle, and the legal fees on those things are pretty significant."
MacRae said that anytime a student is expelled, significant legal costs are also incurred.
That came into play in dealing with the threats that were made against Hammarskjold over a period months.
An 18-year-old and a 14-year-old were ultimately charged by Thunder Bay Police.
"There were some issues when we ended up actually determining the perpetrators and bringing them to our own expulsion situation. That is quite costly," MacRae said.
He noted that the board also incurred some costs providing additional security at the high school during the period of the threats by hiring off-duty police officers.
MacRae said the board has a budget for legal fees as well as a contingency fund.
He said that costs can sometimes be recovered from the board's insurers.
