A three-year legal fight over school property deeds that started under then-Mayor Kasim Reed will cost the city of Atlanta and Atlanta Public Schools more than $700,000.
The dispute is now well on its way to an out-of-court resolution under a new mayor who pledged to mend the city’s frayed relationship with the school district.
The cost to taxpayers includes attorney fees and property title research— some of which officials contend would have been required even if APS and the city had not scuffled in a Fulton County lawsuit the school district filed in March of 2015.
APS has spent about $334,000 through the end of February to obtain control of deeds to school properties from the city, while the city racked up charges of more than $400,000 — much of which was to fight the school district in court during Reed’s administration, according to interviews with officials and documents obtained through public records requests.
The city and school system legally split in the 1970s, though the city retained the deeds to school property. The expensive fight began when then-Mayor Reed refused to give the school system deeds to four closed schools, which the system wanted to sell.
Read what happened to bring this fight to a head, then a resolution at MyAJC.com.
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