Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 16, 1994 TAG: 9402160344
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
But the move - which would end efforts discussed last month to share a purchaser between the schools and the general county government - comes with many strings attached.
And top Montgomery school officials didn't even know about the proposed agreement until contacted by a reporter Tuesday afternoon.
School Board Chairman Roy Vickers said his board wouldn't have a chance to discuss it until March 1.
"At first glance, you would think that it would be jointly negotiated before it's put before either board," Vickers said. "As it stands today, I don't believe I'd accept it."
Top school and county officials will meet todaycqWed. to talk about the new development in the merger issue, which has been a thorn under the saddle of both boards for two years.
Supervisors Chairman Larry Linkous said the board discussed the agreement in closed session because an attorney for the School Board once said a full merger of the finance departments could lead to a lawsuit.
County officials therefore believed the conversation exempt from the state open-meeting law because it involved a legal matter.
Regardless, the Board of Supervisors has put the ball into the School Board's court.
"We have decided that this would be something really simple that would give us the accountability that we were looking for, that would give us information that's readily available," Linkous said. "If the School Board agrees to this, we'll say forget consolidation."
If the stick for school officials in the proposal is the detailed, 10-year agreement to turn over financial data, the carrot is the supervisors' offer to drop consolidation efforts. The supervisors still believe they have the power under state law to force a merger.
The Board of Supervisors tried to make its offer even more of a quid pro quo by tying the School Board's acceptance of the agreement to its receiving another $117,000 in county funding this spring. It is part of $470,000 for the school finance department budget that the supervisors held in a special account while negotiations on the merger started last year.
The supervisors have turned over three-quarters of that sum in previous installments, including $235,000 on Tuesday.
Memo: ***CORRECTION***