A Beverly Hills citizens’ committee is questioning the local school district’s use of voter-approved bond money to fund lawsuits challenging Metro’s Purple Line subway extension to the Westside.

The Beverly Hills School District has spent $15.7 million in bond funding set aside for infrastructure improvements on legal efforts to block or alter the route of the subway, which will travel under Beverly Hills High School, according to an annual report from the Measure E citizens’ bond oversight committee.

Passed in 2008, Measure E made $334 million available to the district for building and maintaining school facilities. So far, the district has spent $183.5 million of those funds; more than 8 percent has gone toward litigation against Metro and the Federal Transit Administration, according to the report.

“Legal expenditures reduce bond funds available for construction,” wrote the authors of the report. “The COC is concerned that the district has not articulated a reasonable strategy for this litigation, and that the litigation fees and costs are not monitored with the goal of assuring that the law firms are exercising sound legal and billing judgement.”

Adding on to those concerns, an accounting firm brought on to audit the district’s bond expenditures reported that it was “unclear” whether the language of the ballot measure permits funds to be spent on legal fees.

The school district has repeatedly challenged the subway project in court, arguing that its construction would disrupt learning at the high school and threaten the health and safety of students.

Last year, former school board president Lisa Korbatov called on the Trump administration to block the project and students rallied at Will Rogers Memorial Park in protest of the train line. Concerned parents and school leaders argue that Metro contractors could inadvertently release toxic gases from abandoned oil wells by tunneling beneath the high school.

The transit agency maintains that this issue has been addressed through multiple studies of the site and that tunneling won’t put students at risk.

Last month, a district court judge declined to issue a final ruling on the school district’s latest lawsuit, giving time for district officials to reach a possible settlement agreement with Metro and the FTA.

Construction is already underway on the Purple Line extension, which will bring the subway from Koreatown, where it ends now, all the way to the Veterans Affairs campus in Brentwood. The project is being built in three phases, with the second segment passing under Beverly Hills High School.

Metro contractors began work on the second leg of the project last year, just a month after the school district filed its latest lawsuit.

The oversight committee raised similar concerns about the use of Measure E funds to pay for the legal challenges in its annual report from a year ago. The group has requested legal invoices from the district, as well as a legal opinion on “whether Measure E funds may be used for the litigation.” Citing attorney-client privilege, the school board reportedly declined to provide these documents.

A spokesperson for the school board did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this story.