A court-ordered public records production that has shadowed the Lehighton Area School District for more than two years is finally complete, Superintendent Jason Moser told the school board Monday night.

Moser said the district has finished the work required under a December 2024 Carbon County Court ruling, and that all documents have been provided to the requester, current director David Bradley.

The total out-of-pocket cost was just under $17,500, paid to Toshiba to scan and produce the documents. District employees logged approximately 850 hours completing the required redactions over the course of the two-year process.

“This was a great move by the board at the time, to engage with Toshiba to ship and produce scanned files,” Moser said.

When a board member asked what those 850 hours cost in salary expenses, Moser responded, “A ballpark, about half of the salary of a full-time person.”

Officials estimated that to be around $25,000.

Director Jeremy Glaush noted the total was considerably lower than earlier projections.

“Quite a far cry from $300,000,” Glaush said.

Bradley, whose right-to-know request set the legal saga in motion, put the cost in broader perspective.

“It is also a lawful requirement to provide these documents, so it is part of the government responsibility to have those expenses inside that office to make sure that those people get to see everything within the district,” Bradley said. “After losing millions of dollars for programs that were not provided, and millions of dollars that were all budgeted and all the other things, it looks like it is about one-tenth of 1% of what was found by the auditor general.”

The case has a long history rooted in Bradley’s efforts to inspect the district’s financial records, first as a private citizen and later as an elected board member. The Pennsylvania Office of Open Records granted Bradley’s request on Aug. 15, 2022, giving him the right to inspect financial records without redactions.

What followed was more than a year of delays and disputed access. On Dec. 12, 2023, Bradley requested to inspect the records over the district’s winter break. Then-Superintendent Dr. Christina Fish responded on Jan. 2, 2024, informing Bradley that only one box of records would be available on Jan. 5 and that he would be required to pay $731.25 for photocopying, a charge the court later found to be unnecessary.

When Bradley arrived on Jan. 5, he was told to return Jan. 8 because of an issue with mixed redacted and unredacted copies. At the Jan. 8 meeting, he received 1,816 pages of documents — fewer than the 2,925 pages he had paid for. The records were also improperly redacted, contrary to the OOR’s directive, according to court documents.

Carbon County Judge Joseph J. Matika issued his ruling Dec. 10, 2024, granting Bradley’s motion for sanctions. In his ruling, Matika wrote that the district had been ordered to make all responsive financial records available for inspection without redactions, and that because it failed to meet the burden of its claimed exemptions, the records would need to be provided without them.

Penalties imposed by the court included a $500 civil fine, reimbursement of Bradley’s $731.25 photocopying fee, and the district’s obligation to cover Bradley’s attorney fees from June 20, 2024, onward.

The ruling also warned that further penalties could be imposed for future noncompliance.