COLUMBIA, S.C. - The state has spent $3.7 million in legal fees and expenses defending the way it funds public education in a lengthy lawsuit, which resumes Monday in Manning.

The money spent on the lawsuit could have been used in schools, said Ed McMullen, president of the South Carolina Policy Council, a research group that advocates conservative public spending.

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

About three dozen school districts had filed a lawsuit against the state, claiming the way the state funds public schools does not give them enough money to give students a decent education. Just eight districts are now involved in the court fight, which began more than a decade ago. The trial began last July and has continued off-and-on since.

But the state isn't the only side spending money. The school districts legal fees and expenses might be approaching some $6.8 million.

Tom Truitt, director of the Pee Dee Education Center in Florence who helped spearhead the legal action among the organization's member districts, said those districts have spent $2.25 million.

Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough said it has contributed $4.6 million in time and resources representing the school districts, putting the total costs at about $10.5 million.

Researchers for the Legislature produced summaries of how much the House and Senate have been billed by private-sector lawyers after a Freedom of Information Act request from The (Columbia) State newspaper.

Through July 2004, documents show the Legislature paid $3.7 million, but figures were not available for the two days of trial in August.

And the costs likely won't end there. Attorneys from both sides have acknowledged Circuit Judge Thomas W. Cooper Jr.'s eventual ruling will be appealed to the state Supreme Court.

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.

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."

It's not the first time state government has been 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 military college in Charleston.

Truitt, superintendent of Florence 1 when the initial lawsuit was filed, asked, "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."

---

Information from: The State, http://www.thestate.com/