By Curt Peterson
The day before voters were asked to approve the Windsor Central Supervisory Union budget totaling $21 million, board member Jim Haff asked Killington residents to vote against that budget.
He told voters at the Killington public informational meeting March 2 that it’s nearly certain an unrecognized $1 million deficit will be uncovered in the 2019 and 2020 district audit. He urged district voters to reject the budget as inaccurate and incomplete.
The audit of the 2019 year is not complete yet, which Haff says makes the proposed budget undefendable.
“Without an accurate line item budget, and suspecting we have a deficit to deal with, we are asked to allow the superintendent [Mary Beth Banios] to spend $21 million as she pleases with no oversight,” Haff told about 60 people at the Killington meeting Monday night.
Haff said this will be the first budget he has voted against since moving to Killington.
The previous finance manager is responsible for incomplete financial records, Haff said, but it was Banios’s job to oversee his work. He thinks Banios misled the board regarding the state of the books, and about some agreed cost cutting measures.
“The new finance guy [Mike Concessi] is doing a good job correcting the mess,” Haff said.
Ron Smith, the board’s auditor, is meeting with the Finance Committee on Wednesday, March 4, to discuss the 2019 audit and its probable repercussions.
“I talked to him about it on the phone today,” Haff said. “He told me, ‘It’s not good.’”
Asked what would happen if voters reject the budget, Town Clerk Lucrecia Wonsor said a second vote would be required, either to reconsider the original budget or to vote on a new version. The cost to the town would be around $1,000.
“Would you say the problems at the school district are caused by mismanagement?” a resident asked at the Monday meeting.
Haff hesitated only briefly before saying, “Well … yes, it is mismanagement.”
“This is the new me,” Haff said. “I’m not who I was eight years ago,” he said jokingly, referring to his reputation as a “bull in the China shop” during his first term on the Killington Select Board. “This time, I’ve tried to get things done by ‘killing with kindness.’ But it hasn’t really worked… I’m not doing that anymore.”
Haff said other school district board members were also asking their constituents to vote “no” on the district budget so that the superintendent and board could put together a more complete budget picture.
In an email on Tuesday, March 3, Banios said Haff was misrepresenting the issues.
“It is unfortunate that an individual, who is also a board member, made false and misleading claims about my performance as a superintendent, the FY21 budget, and the financial management of the district,” Banios said. “This individual’s comments do not represent the position of the full board, collective Finance Committee, our auditor or the current Finance Director. When a trusted elected official misrepresents facts in a public meeting related to a budget, it makes it hard for voters to make informed decisions around how their public dollars should be spent.”
Killington board member Jennifer Iannantuoni didn’t attend the public meeting, but she said there were some issues with the numbers.
“It is true that the board and the superintendent have certainly been startled to discover the former business manager had been giving us a general impression that the books were being kept up to date (as they had been for many years under his leadership) while they really quite delinquent,” she said in an email.
District towns voted on the budget Tuesday, but results were not available until after the Mountain Times’ deadline. Check MountainTimes.info for results.
Other issues with the budget were mentioned at the a budget meeting on Feb. 27, where Pomfret resident Bob Crean complained that a promised $100,000 for a specialized HVAC system at The Prosper Valley School isn’t in the budget. There is $50,000, however, provided for cleaning the building of non-toxic mold spores and ripping out affected cabinets and flooring, necessary before the HVAC system is installed.
At that same meeting, there was some concern about unfair treatment of the Reading School in the budget that left them with insufficient human resources.
