BRISTOL — Doubling down on their efforts to spend money voters never appropriated, members of the Newfound Area School Board and school administrators made it clear last month that their priorities override any vote by the public.
Christine Davol of New Hampton said that, regardless of the voters’ rejection of the proposed school budget for 2018-19, she knows of people who did not vote but supported spending the $712,000 that administrators had targeted for building improvements.
Sharon Klapyk of Danbury said spending the money identified in the school’s capital improvement plan is too important to ignore and declared those who opposed the spending to be “uneducated.”
Klapyk previously asked to keep her contact information private because she did not want her constituents to bother her at home during her family time.
The discussion originated from a challenge from Bristol resident Archie Auger, a former school administrator who discovered after the annual meeting that the default budget that had been prepared in case voters rejected the proposed spending plan had included money for capital improvements without voters ever having approved the expenditures.
Superintendent Stacy Buckley pointed out that there is no legal obligation for the public to approve a capital improvement plan. Typically, town or school officials preparing a capital improvement plan for long-term spending will hold a public hearing and then adopt the plan.
Contrary to general practice, however, Buckley and Business Administrator Michael Limanni maintain that, once adopted, a capital improvement plan becomes part of the operating budget. Other towns and school districts use such plans as general guidelines they review each year before putting capital items in the budget or in separate warrant articles for voters to approve. Newfound is the first school district to argue that a capital improvement plan must be funded.
The New England Association of Schools and Colleges, in its recently released reaccreditation report on Newfound, commended the district for having a capital improvement plan, and it recommended also adhering to its technology replacement plan which often gets adjusted to make up for budget shortfalls or to meet the district’s tax cap.
Dispute
Auger maintains that, because voters have never approved any capital expenditures from the plan the school board adopted in May of last year, it was improper to include those items in the default budget.
Limanni compared building maintenance to the purchase of textbooks, noting that book purchases can exceed $600,000, yet they are placed in the general operating budget.
Auger had been joined by a large contingent of district voters who demanded that the school board remove the capital items from the default budget. The board has delayed taking any action, even in the face of a threatened lawsuit challenging the action.
A recent supreme court decision in a similar challenge to Weare selectmen, who placed items voters had not approved in their default budget, came down on the side of the voters, but Newfound’s attorney, Barbara Loughman, said it was entirely legal to include the money because voters the previous year had appropriated $800,000 to repair the high school roof. Although the capital improvement plan had not been adopted when the roof job was approved, she said that, having approved the repairs, other items identified in the capital improvement plan could be included in the default budget.
Auger — who, incidentally, had made the motion to add the $800,000 to the previous year’s budget — said the roof repair was a one-time expenditure, which by statute could not be included in the default budget.
Selectmen and residents of Newfound Area towns had agreed with Auger, and their own attorneys differed with Loughman’s interpretation of the law. They asked the school board to turn back the money they felt had been inappropriately included.
While large contingents had attended the March and April meetings, only Auger came to press the issue in May, and the school board rebuffed him, continuing to put off a decision.
Vincent Paul Migliore of Bridgewater advocated utilizing a provision of the law that allows a school district to hold a special meeting to settle on a budget, rather than relying on a default budget. He found no support among other school board members, who like Klapyk and Davol felt no obligation to listen to the voters, or who like School Board Chair Jeff Levesque of Groton wanted to retain some of the appropriated funds, returning part of the money this year and part of the money next year.
Levesque said he understands residents’ concerns about high taxes, saying he is sometimes unable to pay his own taxes, but he maintained that taking care of the district’s school buildings is more important than affordability.
“I understand about not being able to pay taxes, but I also understand about supporting our schools, and that is why I sit in this seat,” he said.
With the board divided on whether to take any action on Auger’s request, Levesque closed the discussion and said they would have to take it up another time. He did not put it on the agenda for the June 11 meeting.
Roof Project
The roots of the dispute can be traced back to the school board’s decision when forming a facilities committee to make its own members a minority. School board subcommittees typically consult with administrators and staff members, but the board develops the plan and maintains control of the decisions. The Newfound facilities committee left the work to staff members and administrators, giving them voting rights on any proposals they came up with. The plan that would be brought back to the full board for approval was the administration’s plan — something Klapyk noted when she first joined the facilities committee.
Apart from occasional questions from Migliore, administrators have not faced many challenges from the current school board members, unlike past years when the board took a more active part in the decision-making. This year’s board did not make time to complete the February evaluation of the superintendent’s performance prior to her receiving a raise, and when the board received an “update” on the high school roof project on May 29, administrators told them they needed an immediate decision, rather giving board members time to review the proposal developed by construction consultants Bonnette, Page & Stone.
When Auger made the motion to add $800,000 to the 2017-18 operating budget, he was acting on the facilities committee’s recommendation that the roof repairs be done immediately to prevent further damage to the building. The school board could not legally include the roofing project in its budget recommendation because, even if paid through a bond issue, the cost would exceed the amount allowed under the school district’s tax cap. By amending the budget from the floor at the annual school district meeting, Auger was able to exceed the tax cap and, in the process, increase the base for calculating the next year’s budget by $800,000.
Despite the facilities committee’s assertion that the roof repairs were a pressing need and Auger’s ability to convince the voters to approve the spending, the administration did not put the project out to bid in 2017, but it hired Bonnette, Page & Stone this year to evaluate the roofing types and costs, as well as to handle the bidding process.
In their report to the school board on May 29, BPS President Keith McBey and Project Manager Barrett Salta recommended a RhinoBond roof, at a price of $591,923, which is less than half the price of a “built-up” roofing system, whose estimated cost would be $1,367,163.
Davol, whose brother-in-law does roofing, objected to being asked to make a decision that night, saying she prefers to review material before making up her mind. Migliore agreed, asking why there was such a rush after waiting 18 months to do the work.
McBey said they need to make a decision and hire the subcontractors soon in order to establish a timeline for the work over the summer and have a chance to procure the material. It could take a month or more after deciding to get the material to have it on hand to begin the construction, and they want to complete it over the summer, he said.
Bringing up the potential for bad weather, workforce issues, and other things that could potentially delay the work, Migliore said they have to work around such problems, and they could work around a two-week delay to give school board members time to consider the options.
With administrators also emphasizing the need to get underway with the project, Davol joined other board members in approving the $591,923 expenditure with a reluctant yes, leaving Migliore as the only one voting against the recommendation.
10 June 2018
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