ROYALTON — Royalton Town Administrator Rose Hemond is moving to the finance office of the White River Valley Supervisory Union, school and town officials confirmed Thursday.

School officials in Royalton and Bethel are counting on Hemond, whose management of town finances is expected to yield a municipal surplus by the end of the current fiscal year, to help the White River Unified School District restore order to a budget facing a $455,000 deficit.

“We really needed an accountant,” Superintendent of Schools Bruce Labs said in a telephone interview Thursday. “We’ve had some turnover, as the merger of districts essentially doubled the size of the supervisory union, and she has a lot of years of experience in doing this kind of work. She knows the people around here. She’s got a lot of credibility.

“There’s not a lot of people out there who can do this kind of work and who are committed to living in this area.”

The Selectboard accepted Hemond’s resignation Dec. 20. Her departure from the municipal job is accelerating a planned reshuffling of responsibilities in the town offices, where she started as an accountant more than seven years ago and wound up inheriting the roles of chief assistant to the Selectboard and a variety of other tasks.

“The position morphed from her being a finance person into way more than what she intended it to be,” Royalton Selectboard Chairwoman Sandy Conrad said. “It got to the point where, when the port-a-potties filled up at the recreation field, it fell to Rose to make sure they got pumped out. When we had a lightning strike at the town office and police department last summer, knocking out all of our phones and electronic systems, it fell on her to find a way to bring us back up to speed. We had nobody else to help us with that.”

For her combined efforts, the town paid Hemond a total of $63,600 in fiscal year 2019. Labs estimated her salary with the supervisory union will be around $60,000.

Conrad said the town is advertising for a full-time finance manager and has hired someone to serve as a combined assistant to the Selectboard and supervisor of buildings and grounds. During the search for a finance manager, Victoria Paquin, a part-time accountant for the Royalton Fire District’s prudential committee, will fill in at the town position for about four days a week.

During a break from showing Paquin the ropes on Thursday, Hemond, a 1992 graduate of Keene State College who has lived in Royalton for 16 years, declined to enumerate her reasons for moving over to the school-district offices.

“I have enjoyed my seven-plus years working here and have been most pleased with overseeing the finance department and contributing to many important town projects such as the new town office building,” Hemond said during an exchange of emails. “The … supervisory union … has a great group of people I am looking forward to working with.”

Conrad praised Hemond for doing “unbelievable things for our community.

“She has organized our finance department in a way that, for the first year ever, we are going to end our year with a surplus,” the Selectboard chairwoman said. “She’s kept very close track of revenues and expenses even while taking on all those other duties. It’s our loss, but the schools’ gain.”

David Corriveau can be reached at dcorriveau@vnews.com or at 603-727-3304.