photo by: Journal-World

The Lawrence school district offices, 110 McDonald Drive.

Story updated at 5:40 p.m. Tuesday:

The Lawrence school district received a 27% discount through a settlement agreement with its natural gas provider over a dispute for its energy bill during a major freeze in Kansas last winter.

But that pales in comparison to the discount other Kansas school districts received through their settlement agreements over the same issue with a different energy company. As the Journal-World previously reported, many other school districts negotiated a settlement through the Kansas Association of School Boards that resulted in a 50% reduction to their disputed gas bills.

The Lawrence district, however, wasn’t a part of that settlement agreement. A private attorney negotiated the settlement for Lawrence, and until this week the district and the company were declining to release details about the discount amount. However, the Lawrence district this week partially complied with a Kansas Open Records Act request from the Journal-World seeking details about the contract.

According to the confidential settlement agreement between the district and Constellation NewEnergy’s gas division, the district saw its nearly $477,500 gas bill cut to about $348,500.

The Journal-World received a copy of the agreement this week through the Kansas Open Records Act after district officials refused to share the agreement or discuss its details last week. In the agreement the district released, some lines of text were redacted, and the Journal-World has inquired why redactions were made without citing reasons as required by state law.

As of 5 p.m. Tuesday, the district had not responded to the Journal-World’s request to specify the reason for the redactions. The district also did not respond to the Journal-World’s question about whether it believed the 27% discount was a good deal, considering that other Kansas school districts had received a much larger discount from a different energy company.

On Nov. 29, the Lawrence school board approved an agreement with Constellation after it had negotiated a discount to the gas bill it had received that covered the time between Feb. 12 and Feb. 19.

District officials originally would not share the details of the agreement with the public, despite the agreement involving the spending of public funds. Instead, district spokeswoman Julie Boyle said the agreement meant that “the issue was resolved to all parties’ satisfaction.”

After releasing the agreement this week, Boyle pointed to a provision in the settlement that dictated the district’s response to media inquiries, which was provided to the Journal-World’s questions about it “as not to jeopardize the settlement agreement for our district or other parties,” she said. According to the agreement, a provision in the settlement says: “The Parties further agree that if public or press inquiry is made regarding the terms of this Agreement, the Parties may only indicate that the matter has been resolved to all Parties’ satisfaction.”

Last week, the school board’s president, Erica Hill, gave the same language to the Journal-World, when asked how the secret agreement squared with the idea of good government.

Several other board members did not respond to a request for comment, cut short interviews or answered by referring questions to Boyle as the district’s spokesperson or Hill as the board’s president.

Superintendent Anthony Lewis did not respond to a request for an interview on the matter.

The district secured the settlement agreement after it joined other state school districts in a lawsuit that the Kansas Association of School Boards brought against energy companies. The lawsuit challenged unexpectedly high energy bills that were associated with a deep freeze throughout a significant part of the country in February.

But Austin Harris of KASB told the Journal-World the organization did not directly negotiate the settlement for the Lawrence school district. Lawrence received services through a different energy company, so KASB connected the district to attorney James P. Zakoura, who negotiated its settlement, he said.

The district’s negotiated discount is also much less than what other school districts received from a different energy company through the KASB-negotiated settlement.

KASB negotiated agreements for a group of 178 school districts that receive services through KASB’s “energy pool.” In that settlement, the schools received a 50% discount, Harris said.

As the Journal-World previously reported, the district received a bill of $498,000 for its February utility costs, which is a more than 800% increase over its normal cost of $54,000. According to the board’s meeting agenda, a little more than $477,000 of that charge was in dispute.

This is not the first secret settlement the district has agreed to in recent years.

In 2016, the district entered into a severance agreement with a South Middle School teacher who was accused of making racist comments. The board took the unusual step of accepting the teacher’s resignation without ever releasing his name. The Journal-World sought the name, was denied access and then filed an open records request for any settlement agreement in the matter. Ultimately, the district released the settlement agreement after receiving legal advice to do so.

At that point, the district indicated it understood it could not make secret settlement agreements, but then proceeded to do so last week.