A decade-old money dispute between South Carolina’s poor school districts and the Legislature has racked up legal expenses exceeding $10.5 million — and counting.

Responding to a Freedom of Information Act request, researchers for the Legislature produced month-by-month summaries of how much the House and Senate have been billed by private-sector lawyers defending state government in a civil case dating to 1993. Through July 2004, documents show the Legislature paid $3.7 million in legal fees and expenses. Figures were not available for the two days of trial in August.

During that 11-year period, the state tapped an account set aside specifically for legal matters, plus its Insurance Reserve Fund and budget surpluses.

On the other side, Tom Truitt, director of the Pee Dee Education Center in Florence who helped spearhead the legal action among the organization’s member districts, said his tabulation of money those districts have spent is $2.25 million. Add in the $4.6 million the Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough firm said it has contributed in time and resources representing the plaintiff school districts — Allendale County, Dillon 2, Florence 4, Hampton 2, Jasper County, Lee County, Marion 7 and Orangeburg 3 — and the total exceeds $10.55 million.

Both sides return to court in Manning today for an expected two more weeks of testimony.

At issue is whether a 1977 formula the Legislature uses as a guide to dole out state aid for public education provides enough money for schools to give students a “minimally adequate education.” A 1999 state Supreme Court ruling defined that as the state government’s obligation to all South Carolinians.

In the four years since, attorneys for the plaintiff districts have concentrated on proving that children living in poor, rural communities require greater spending for remedial instruction to help them keep pace academically with counterparts in wealthier districts.

All but about $100,000 of the state’s spending has gone to the Columbia law firm of Sowell Gray Stepp & Laffitte, which took over the case in 1999 from another private attorney, Ashley B. Abel.

While the Nelson Mullins firm, also of Columbia, has not billed its clients for work done by attorneys, the school districts have paid for such items as copying costs and expenses incurred by expert witnesses brought in from around the country to testify on their behalf.

“The bulk of that has been in the past two years,” Truitt said. “We pay expenses. I had no idea how much transcripts cost.”

This isn’t the first time state government has found itself embroiled in a costly legal battle over education policy. During the 1990s, the state and The Citadel spent $13.2 million to block women from enrolling in the public military college in Charleston. The college eventually conceded and let women join the Corps of Cadets.

Mike Griffith tracks lawsuits pitting disgruntled school systems against state governments across the country for the Colorado-based Education Commission of the States. He said he is unaware of any national study or report on what legal actions elsewhere have cost states.

“These cases tend to drag on for years, and for some reason, their costs seem to be overlooked” in reporting on court decisions and subsequent action by legislatures, he said.

Ed McMullen, president of the S.C. Policy Council, a research organization that advocates conservative approaches to public spending, wondered about the good that money could have done if spent in the schools.

“Imagine how many teachers that money would buy. Or textbooks or classrooms and the impact on quality we could have,” he said.

The S.C. school districts suing the state for more money insist their local economy cannot generate enough money to provide remedial instruction to a disproportionate number of children living in poverty. Many of those children, the districts’ lawyers insist, are underprepared for rigorous learning standards laid out in 1998’s school reform law that requires extensive testing in nearly every grade.

McMullen said that argument lacks credibility when you look at the extra money funneled into Allendale County since 1999, when the state Department of Education took control of operations there. During the 2002-03 school year, the school system spent $10,365 per child (in local, state and federal funds), the second-highest of any S.C. district; the median was $7,405.

Rhett Jackson, a retired Columbia businessman, co-chairs an organization that has taken up the plaintiff districts’ cause by mobilizing the public to pressure the Legislature to spend more on schools. He called the mounting legal bills “almost criminal. They’re paying no attention to what should be the priorities in this state.”

Meanwhile, the legal costs will continue to escalate.

Circuit Judge Thomas W. Cooper Jr., whose annual state salary is $116,940, and lawyers arguing both sides acknowledge the judge’s eventual ruling will be appealed to the S.C. Supreme Court.

Truitt, superintendent of Florence 1 when the initial lawsuit was filed, asks, rhetorically, “Has it been worth it?”

“I feel like it has been necessary,” he said. “It’s called attention to the needs, the concerns of poor, rural school districts.”

Lawmakers, he said, “have been looking at it in a little different light. I think the lawsuit has had some impact, but it’s been too slow.”

Reach Robinson at (803) 771-8482 or brobinson@thestate.com.