BISD LEGAL TAB BIZ AS USUAL UNDER BALTAZAR SALAZAR

By Juan Montoya
Remember back in April of 2013 when Baltazar Salazar came to the Brownsville Independent School District board podium to make his pitch for the lucrative legal gig and he stressed the fact that he was a straight shooter who would "stab you in the front" in contrast to others who would stab you in the back.
He looked at trustee Minerva Peña and said pointedly: "I've known some of you since I was a kid," and said his goal was "not to make money."
He promised he would "tone down your legal expenses" and bring "stability, because you have chaos, and when there's chaos, lawyers make money."
The school district, he told them, had "become a cash cow" because the district did not follow procedure and said he was there "to serve the board as a whole."
Well, it appears that despite his Herculean efforts to keep down legal costs as promised, the cow is out of the barn and headed down the road to be milked once again, thanks in no small part to this dubious legal eagle.
In a compilation performed by BISD auditors and this February indicates that the large amounts of legal fees that the board majority complained about before Salazar came on board have nearly been duplicated in 2015 and that 2016 (when compiled) will be comparable to the past year.

Records of legal costs between 2005-2006 to 2014- to June, 2015 indicate that the BISD has spent $5,526,240 million for external attorneys. Since 2013, when Salazar was hired until June 2015, the district spent $1,623,602, or about 30 percent of the $5.5 million. In other words, in the two years that Salazar has been board counsel, the district has spent one-third what was spent in the past 10 years. Things, in fact, have gotten worse under his watch.

In 2011, the BISD set up their own Legal Dept. and spent $99,586. This increased to $197,188 by June 2015, the scope of the auditors' compilation. Over that time, BISD has spent $197,188 on its in-house legal help. Add that to the $1,623,602 paid for external attorneys under Salazar, and the real price that BISD taxpayers have had to foot becomes clearer.

In fact, the former legal counsel – Thompson and Horton LLP – earned the wrath of the  BISD board majority who cited this spending as a justification for bringing Salazar on board. What happened to the promises to hold down legal costs? Has anything really changed?

Under his contract, Salazar is considered an "external attorney" since he is under contract with the district and not a BISD employee. In 2015, his $264,000 salary topped all "external attorney" payments. The closest external attorney paid that year was $74,109 paid to Harltine, Dacus, Barger, Dreyer LLP. The next on the feeding line was Aguilar and Zabarte LLC with $74.079.

In FY 2014, it was Salazar again leading the "external attorney" outlays with $246,000, Christopher Jonas (of Special Needs due process infamy) with $95,500, followed by William Birnbirg and Anderson LLP with $60,932.

In fact, the list of attorneys who have profited from Salzar's tenure at the BISD have been the attorney firm he replaced, Thompson and Horton LLP. They received $282,245 for 2013, and $20,907 in 2014.

Why the outside counsel in cases involving BISD? Could it be because Salazar is not an education law specialist? In fact, his firm was not ranked among the first four picks of the board when they compared their qualifications for school law. As a result, the district has had to farm out its legal work to other firms because Salazar does not possess the experience in education law to service the district's needs. He does, however, enjoy the support of political biggies such as Texas Sen. Eddie Lucio to whgom he is related through family.

During the election, many candidates promised to scale down on the legal costs of the district. One obvious place to start would seem to be the overpaid office of the board counsel. We'll see just how serious they were in their campaign promises.