The school’s own money

The Board of Finance sets the schedule on which the elementary school receives its budget, by public vote, every year. In July the First Selectman replaced that schedule by email. No board had voted on anything.

The most recent Andover Board of Selectmen meeting had on its agenda the item

Discussion and Action on AES Operating Budget Funding Procedure ^[1]

There were rumors swirling about what this would contain. An FOIA request ^[2] was submitted to the Town Hall for related records. At the meeting, the First Selectman moved to delete the item ^[3].

When the FOIA response was received, it turned out that the rumors were true, and that the First Selectman said he was initiating a new mechanism for the transfer of funds into the school operating account: in brief, that the town had put $100,000 into the account and would release more only as the school submitted its spending records, week by week, for approval.

Here is how the elementary school is supposed to get its money, because that part is not complicated. The voters approve the school’s budget at referendum; this year that took until June 16, on the third asking ^[4]. The Board of Finance then sets the schedule on which the money actually reaches the school. For three years running that schedule has been ten equal monthly payments, July through April ^[5], and the board adopts it the way a board adopts anything: on an agenda, in public, by a recorded vote. Last July it passed seven to nothing ^[6].

On July 1, the First Selectman replaced it via email ^[7].

The email did not ask. It announced. The town had deposited $100,000 into the school’s operating account, it said, and from now on money would follow only as the school submitted its check registers and payroll registers, week by week, for review and approval ^[7].

There was no vote of the Board of Selectmen. There was no vote of the Board of Finance ^[8]. A schedule an elected board had adopted in public, by a recorded vote, was replaced by one official writing that it had been.

Set aside, for a moment, whether the school’s budget is a dollar too high or too low. The voters settled that in June. This is a different thing. This is one official deciding, on his own, the terms on which a school he does not run may receive the money the voters approved.

That is worth paying attention to. Because it did not come out of nowhere.

The school’s own money

Sources