The public records cited in this section, in the order they appear: the minutes, packets and recordings of Andover's own meetings.
Asked from the floor about the mask mandate at the elementary school, First Selectman Jeff Maguire, presiding, answered: "This board doesn't have anything to do with the school mandate or how it's addressed. That's the Board of Education. Just so before everybody goes down that road, this board has control of public buildings such as the town hall, the library, the museum, and those types of facilities" (~2:19:39). The question he was answering concerned a school health policy, and his answer concerns which board governs the school. No minutes for this meeting are posted; the speaker is identified from the recording. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Y8S8zglWek
First Selectman Jeff Maguire and Selectwoman Paula King came to the June 14, 2023 Board of Education meeting for a conversation about the community center; the minutes record the chair welcoming them by name. He answered the board's written safety questions, then took up the memorandum of understanding the board's attorney had drafted. On the record he set out the town's position: "The town of Andover is the school district... The town owns all the land. The town owns all the buildings. The town is the owner of everything. There are no deeded properties to a school or to a board of education" (~38:30). Of the memorandum he said "it's not necessary that we really do that," while agreeing to review it, and said the town would go to planning and zoning and move forward (~39:38). Asked whether the school should budget to pave its own upper parking lot, he answered: "It should go to CIP... It's a town asset. This building is a town asset" (~54:01), and earlier, "It's all town money. I don't split hairs" (~50:58). He also told the board he does not tell the Board of Education how to spend its money, that he was not going to kill their budget, that he took responsibility for not having invited a board member onto the building committee, and he agreed to quarterly meetings between the boards. The board chair replied that there is a deeded school line on the site-plan map and that the board has statutory control of school property (~1:05:04). Official minutes: https://www.andoverelementaryct.org/images/boe/Minutes/BOE_Minutes_61423.pdf
The Town's independent auditor, a partner at Mahoney Sabol & Company, LLP, presented the fiscal 2025 audit to the Board of Finance and then answered questions about the July 1 change to the elementary school's funding. Four things are on the record. (1) THE FINDING: he reported one finding rising to a material weakness, the reconciliation of the town's general ledger with the school district's, and read out its recommendation: that the town "no longer records balances and activities that are already accounted for by the school district," that it "limit its accounting to transactions that involve direct financial activity between the town and the school district," including "appropriations, transfers, reimbursements, or shared service costs," and that "the school district continue to provide the town with its monthly financial reports" (~7:15). (2) THE PRIOR-YEAR SCHOOL FINDING IS CLEARED: the previous year's significant deficiency over bank and interfund reconciliations at the school district "has not been repeated" (~5:35); the corrective action plan was filed with the state Office of Policy and Management (~8:50). (3) WHO DECIDES: asked directly about the funding change, he said he had spoken with the superintendent and the first selectman, had no conceptual objection to a cash management policy that maximizes interest, but that neither state statute nor the town charter addresses the question; his recommendation was that it be "a board policy" approved by the Board of Finance, providing the parameters within which the administration sets procedure (~46:42), because "the question is who ultimately has the authority to make those decisions," and such a policy "certainly could include how the board of education... ultimately gets funded" (~48:21, restated ~57:32). (4) THE FIRST SELECTMAN'S OWN ACCOUNT: he told the board he was the author of the change, that "yes, I'm driving this, but it's not because of anything nefarious," and that he had never commented on the school's expenses other than the budget (~54:14); and that he cannot tell the Board of Education what to do, that the finance board cannot either, and that the board "can do whatever they want with their funded balance" (~54:52). SPEAKER IDENTITY CONFIRMED by Scott, 2026-07-24: Robert England (BOF chair), Jeff Maguire (First Selectman), Michael J. VanDeventer (auditor), Caitlin McIntosh Greenhouse (BOE chair). The 52:44-55:33 stretch is Maguire; 55:33-56:00 is the auditor. Video: youtube.com/watch?v=nqOKqiLFcGo.