Orford
At Tuesday night’s School Board meeting, a group of residents calling themselves the “Orford Citizen Technical Assessment Committee” posed questions about the district’s compliance with its founding compact, the interstate “articles of agreement,” and asked for an independent management audit.
Orford accountant Mark Burger spoke for about 10 minutes on Tuesday, raising doubts as to whether the district, in its nearly two decades of existence, had accurately applied provisions that determine each town’s share of the financial load.
“The issue is, did we follow the agreement?” he asked. “And if we didn’t, what is the impact?”
Orford residents for some time have contended that they bear an undue burden, and this spring they turned out in large numbers to vote on the school budget, which narrowly passed by paper ballot — a proceeding that Burger initiated.
On Tuesday, Burger pointed out instances in which he said Orford could have been overcharged, including a recent change in funding allocations for pre-K students. But he said that an audit potentially could discover disparities among the Vermont towns, too.
The four towns divvy up the tax levy based on their student enrollments, of which Orford has the largest. Burger, however, questioned the way the district counts students.
Orford is expected to pay $20.82 per $1,000 in valuation in fiscal year 2017, according to budget documents, significantly more than Fairlee’s rate of $1.80, West Fairlee’s $1.96 and Vershire’s $1.83. Vermont property taxes are assessed per $100 of valuation.
Burger also asked for clarification on how state laws applied to the district.
Some new legislation does not affect Rivendell, he said, including certain provisions of Vermont Act 46, the 2015 educational merger law; other Vermont statutes, apparently, do.
Vice Chairman Mark Avery, of Fairlee, expressed doubt about some of Burger’s arguments — “I notice you present things as fact when they’re not necessarily fact,” he said — but said that additional clarity would be useful.
“The articles of agreement, they seem pretty general,” Avery said. “They’re not specific … and that’s why I agree; we need somebody to look at this and help us out with it.”
Nevertheless, the meeting grew testy at times, with a few of the roughly 50 attendees trading accusations.
“To me,” Burger said, “it looks like the board has been looking out for — I’m going to be frank — the interests of the Vermont taxpayers.”
“What you’re saying isn’t legal fact,” School Board Chairman Marc DeBois, an Orford resident, countered. “It’s an opinion at this point.”
To obtain a legal opinion, DeBois said, the district will have to make some significant outlays.
“We can’t get into some $10,000-$20,000 legal expense just to find that everything was done correctly,” he said.
Kathy Blanchard, an at-large board member who lives in Orford, spoke up later, advising her colleagues and the public not to let the dispute affect their central mission: educating the community’s children.
“I’m also concerned about the potential divisiveness of this,” she said, making reference to Burger’s comment, with which she said she “highly disagreed.” Burger, who was sitting near the front, apologized.
“What I have seen over time with this district is (that) we have come together from four different towns into very much a unified district,” Blanchard said. “We no longer have kids in school who are Fairlee kids and West Fairlee kids and Vershire kids and Orford kids. … That is critically important. The kids don’t see that division, and we as grown-ups shouldn’t see that division, either.”
Board member David Ricker, of Orford, predicted an audit would be long and difficult, and warned that the results would not necessarily benefit the New Hampshire town.
“I do not believe there is a huge boon for Orford at the end of this trail,” he said. “It could very well go the other way.”
At the end of the discussion, board members advocated for asking both states’ education agencies for help with the document, and Superintendent Mike Harris said he planned to reach out to the heads of those organizations today.
DeBois said the board would defer action on the possible creation of a committee, which Burger also had requested, until its next meeting, when state officials presumably will have responded.
The next regularly scheduled meeting, according to the district website, is set for 6:30 p.m. on Nov. 1 at the Westshire Elementary School in West Fairlee.
Rob Wolfe can be reached at rwolfe@vnews.com or 603-727-3242.