San Antonio \u2014 UVALDE, Texas \u2014 A stack of more than 1,800 invoices represents over three years of legal battles regarding transparency for the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District.<\/p>\n
FOX SA requested the district\u2019s billing records for attorneys representing UCISD in the years since the Robb Elementary School shooting. According to the documents the district provided and sources, the total legal fees exceed $953,000.<\/p>\n
Since the 2022 tragedy, the law firm Walsh Gallegos Trevi\u00f1o Russo & Kyle P.C., which represents UCISD, has billed the district more than $950,000. Records show the district\u2019s insurance covered just over $234,000, and the firm wrote off another $69,000. Money is spent as families continue waiting for answers and full transparency.<\/p>\n
In the month before the Robb Elementary shooting, records show UCISD\u2019s legal costs totaled just over $800, mostly for routine business. That changed almost overnight.<\/p>\n
In 2022, attorneys billed the district more than $403,000; in 2023, $201,000; in 2024, just over $197,000; and so far this year, about $150,000.<\/p>\n
The largest costs came during the first year after the shooting, when legal work poured into crisis management, construction contracts, and the district\u2019s response to public scrutiny.<\/p>\n
Legal spending also covered planning for Legacy Elementary School, the new campus now officially open. FOX San Antonio\u2019s review of invoices shows charges related to the rebuilding of Robb Elementary or Legacy Elementary, contracts with Architects, and smaller amounts tied to the Moving Forward Foundation, which raised private funds for the new school.<\/p>\n
The invoices include contract negotiations, donor agreements, and coordination between the district, designers, and attorneys. For many victims\u2019 families, however, the legal bills represent more than administrative work; they represent a district struggling to rebuild credibility while continuing to withhold key records about what happened that day.<\/p>\n
FOX San Antonio contacted Walsh Gallegos multiple times for a statement, but the firm did not respond.<\/p>\n
Even as legal spending climbed, the trust of parents, survivors, and community members continued to fall. Some of the district\u2019s legal work tied to Public Information Act requests was marked \u201cno charge,\u201d meaning the firm tracked the time but did not bill the district. Those notations show how deeply attorneys were involved in deciding what could and could not be released to the public.<\/p>\n
That lack of transparency led media organizations, including FOX San Antonio, to sue the district for access to records. After a judge ordered UCISD to release the materials, the district only partially complied, releasing documents and reports piecemeal.<\/p>\n
One of the most contested records involved Amy Franco, a district staff member once accused by then\u2013DPS Director Steve McCraw of leaving open the door the gunman used to enter Robb Elementary. UCISD claimed the Texas Department of Public Safety had the video that could clear her name and would not return it. FOX SA ultimately obtained that video and cleared Franco once and for all.<\/p>\n
“We were called liars and hypocrites, and rightfully so. The trust has been broken, and it takes a long time to rebuild it,” said Jesse Rizo, who lost his niece in the Robb Elementary shooting and now serves on the UCISD school board.<\/p>\n
Rizo has been outspoken about the district\u2019s continued lack of transparency and its handling of public records.<\/p>\n
“It should\u2019ve been dissected thoroughly, not pieced out like we\u2019ve been doing. It\u2019s failure upon failure upon failure,” Rizo said.<\/p>\n
The invoices show the rate of pay, the amount of time, and how much each lawyer, paralegal, and other staff member billed the school district. <\/p>\n
“I would caution any other district that\u2019s going to hire them \u2014 look entirely at what happened here. If you want a reference, just call and ask,” Rizo said.<\/p>\n
Rizo added that the district\u2019s newly hired attorneys have promised to release all remaining records, about one million documents, in an effort to restore public trust.<\/p>\n
“You tell the story, you tell the truth,” said Rizo.<\/p>\n
FOX SA also reached out to UCISD for both an on-camera interview and a written statement regarding the billing records and court-ordered document releases. As of when this story aired, the district has not responded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Antonio \u2014 UVALDE, Texas \u2014 A stack of more than 1,800 invoices represents over three years of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":304917,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5133],"tags":[5229,154621,114643,21683,83455,7202,7203,358,52655,18575,3187,154622,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,50625],"class_list":{"0":"post-304916","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-legal-battles","10":"tag-legal-fees","11":"tag-public-records","12":"tag-robb-elementary","13":"tag-san-antonio","14":"tag-sanantonio","15":"tag-texas","16":"tag-transparency","17":"tag-trust","18":"tag-tx","19":"tag-ucisd","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-united-states-of-america","22":"tag-unitedstates","23":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","24":"tag-us","25":"tag-usa","26":"tag-uvalde"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115377301460609375","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304916\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}