BARRE — It took two tries, but a short-handed school board just filled a vacant seat with a former member, while setting the stage for what will be a multi-million-dollar upgrade to Spaulding High School, and responding to a recent public records request by acknowledging a mistake was made.
A night that began with some confusion about the process for appointing one of four applicants to replace Renee Badeau after her recent resignation, ended hours later with board members clearly divided over whom to choose.
All four applicants — Barre Town residents Brandy Kolling, Paul Malone, Daniel Morrison and Emily Reynolds — were briefly interviewed in public and the board seemingly narrowed the field to two before emerging from a 30-minute closed-door session as Thursday night’s meeting was nearing an end.
That’s when confusion returned and a board, which initially hadn’t planned to make an appointment until after consulting with the Barre Town Select Board next week, struggled to make up its mind.
School Director Sarah Pregent nominated Kolling, a parent and teacher who once worked at Barre City Elementary and Middle School. That motion was seconded even as School Director Terry Reil was nominating Malone, while School Director Terry Reil made a motion to appoint Malone, who served for two years as the board’s chair after a state-ordered merger in 2019 and as chair of the Spaulding High School Board before that.
Confronted with dueling motions, School Director Alice Farrell, who ran the meeting in the absence of Chair Sonya Spaulding, was initially inclined to let board members choose between the two before being advised that isn’t how it works. She was told the back-to-back motions had to be dealt with one at a time and the result of the vote on the first might negate the need to vote on the second.
It didn’t. But it was close.
The board deadlocked on the motion to appoint Kolling and Farrell chose not to break the, 3-3, tie, which saw board members Chris Parker and Giuliano Cecchinelli join Pregent voting in favor with Reil and members Nancy Leblanc and Tim Boltin all opposed.
The motion to appoint Kolling failed on the strength of the unbroken tie and there was no tie to break with respect to Malone’s appointment.
The 4-2 vote wasn’t unanimous, Pregent and Parker voted “no,” but Cecchinelli averted a second tie by joining Reil, Leblanc and Boltin in the majority. Farrell did not participate in the vote, which paved the way for Malone’s return to the board he chaired for two years before stepping down when his term expired in 2021.
Though Malone’s path back to the board was more awkward than it would have been if Reil had made the motion to appoint him first, the split vote came on a night board members unanimously agreed to retain Energy Efficient Investments Inc. to complete the design of planned infrastructure upgrades to Spaulding High School.
Tentative estimates suggests that work, which ranges from electrical upgrades and the expansion of the school’s fire suppression system, to dehumidification of the building’s second and third floors, could cost nearly $7 million.
The district is planning to use pandemic-related federal funds to pay for the work, which board members were told should start later this year and be finished shortly after the start of the 2024 school year.
Energy Efficient Investments “open book” proposal was the only bid received by the board. Work was initially planned at all three district schools, but due to a combination of cost and the age of the high school, the decision was made to spend all of the available federal funding on Spaulding.
Board members didn’t rule out expanding the project to include lighting upgrades, but weren’t ready to make that commitment based on limited information that was available Thursday night.
Speaking on behalf of the board, Farrell read a statement crafted in consultation with the district’s lawyer clarifying information revealed as a result of a recent public records request.
The records in question included the separation agreement with former superintendent David Wells and confirmed persistent rumors he had been paid $87,500 in exchange for his abrupt resignation last year.
Farrell defended that decision while acknowledging a procedural misstep that the records request revealed with respect to what she characterized as the “buyout” of Wells’ contract.
“The board seated at that time voted in open session to accept the superintendent’s (Wells’) resignation,” she said. “We should have voted in open session to approve all terms of the contract. That was a mistake.”
It was one that generated some confusion because among the records requested by Councilor Michael Boutin was a copy of the minutes of the meeting at which the board approved the separation agreement and none of the documents provided indicated that it had.
Farrell said the requested records were provided and while the process may have been flawed the board was, and is, committed to transparency.
Farrell went on to note that while the board had been advised it was under no “legal obligation” to disclose the amount Wells was paid for leaving the district with a year remaining on his contract, it probably should have.
“We acknowledge, with the benefit of retrospect, that we should have publicly announced the amount of the payments made,” she said, adding: “It was our judgment at the time that the best interests of the former superintendent (Wells), and most importantly the district, were better served by not engaging in public statements about the agreement.”
Wells’ resignation was negotiated and announced weeks before the second of three budget votes last year.
Boutin thanked the board for fulfilling his request for public records, while noting it was a struggle at times and he was troubled by the tone of some of the correspondence. In the end, he said, the information was provided and he believed that was in the best interest of the district and its residents.
Barre resident Ulysse “Pete” Fournier said he was “disappointed” and “dismayed” a public records request was necessary and concerned by his perception the board had been less than “forthcoming.”
Fournier’s advice?
“Pay more attention to what the taxpayers of your community are asking you,” he said.
Leclerc, who was elected to the board earlier this year, asked if there were other separation agreements that had not been disclosed.
Superintendent Chris Hennessey, who was hired to replace Wells last year, said he couldn’t think of any.
“Not in the last few years,” he said. “Certainly not since I’ve been in this position.”
The board did fill several teaching vacancies and approved the provisional promotion of Kristin Morrison to serve as assistant principal at Barre City Elementary and Middle School where she has worked as a behavior specialist since 2013. Morrison’s, husband, Daniel — a school principal in Stowe — was among the applicants for the school board seat Malone was appointed to fill.
david.delcore @timesargus.com
