Breaking: Superintendent Taylor Brings Back Outside Special Ed. Law Firm last used in 2018. State Audit had Flagged Issue with Outside Special Ed. Law Firm Contracts in 2016.
Without a Board of Education vote, Superintendent Taylor has added Jeffrey A. Krew, LLC to the list of MCPS outside law firms to represent MCPS in special education matters.
The Montgomery County Board of Education’s Policy BOA makes it clear that;
…the Board retains outside counsel to assist it and the superintendent of schools in carrying out their duties…
…The Board will contract with the attorneys or firms selected to serve as outside counsel…
The last time the Board of Education approved contracts with law firms to represent MCPS in special education matters was 2020. Three law firms were selected at that time.
Yet, MCPS Legal Fees Reports show that Superintendent Thomas W. Taylor has been paying a fourth law firm for legal services related to special education matters since September of 2024. That law firm is Jeffrey A. Krew LLC. (no website found).
This link shows MCPS payments to the Jeffrey A. Krew, LLC law firm from FY 2004 through FY 2012.
The last time Jeffrey A. Krew, LLC was paid to represent MCPS was in FY 2018. From FY 2019 through September of 2024, there is no record of any payments to Jeffrey A. Krew, LLC.
There is no record of the Board of Education rehiring the law firm of Jeffrey A. Krew, LLC.
Since September of 2024, Superintendent Taylor has paid the Jeffrey A. Krew, LLC law firm $139,340.
A bit of History:
In May of 2016, the Maryland Office of Legislative Audits released an audit of MCPS that found a procurement issue with certain legal services for matters involving special education students.
The OLA report stated:
…MCPS had not determined the most cost-effective payment arrangement for certain legal services with payments totaling $226,000 in fiscal year 2014. MCPS’ contract with a legal firm to represent it at hearings involving special needs students and other services included two permissible payment scenarios: one was an all-inclusive per diem billing ate (referred to as a daily hearing rate) and the other a per employee hourly time charge for legal and paralegal services, plus expenses. The invoices submitted by the firm to MCPS frequently only included a daily hearing rate ($6,300 per day), and MCPS was unaware of the number of hours provided for each case. This precluded MCPS from evaluating whether the daily hearing rate payment arrangement provided for related services to be obtained at the best value…
https://parentscoalitionmc.blogspot.com/2016/05/breaking-state-releases-mcps-audit-day.html
The Parents’ Coalition of Montgomery County, MD followed up on the issue flagged in the 2016 OLA report and obtained invoices from October 2015 through May 2016 for a law firm that represented the Board of Education in special education matters. Click on this link to read the invoices that we obtained and see how MCPS was being billed for legal services in some special education matters.
Has Superintendent Taylor brought back the same special education law firm billing practices that were flagged by the OLA Report in 2016?