Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 20, 1994 TAG: 9404210019
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
Though it took no formal vote, the School Board reached consensus that the supervisors' fiscal reporting agreement could not be signed as is.
Some School Board members chafed at the whole notion of the agreement, which the Board of Supervisors approved in the wee hours of Feb. 15, after a closed-door discussion and without consulting school officials ahead of time.
"I'm afraid I look at the whole thing as a bunch of extra paper that's being required. To what end?" asked Virginia Kennedy. "I frankly almost take it as a personal affront" that the supervisors want to mandate several reports that are already routinely shared public information.
School Board Chairman Roy Vickers, who said two months ago he didn't like the proposal, stood by that: "I still feel like my first instinct was the correct instinct."
Nevertheless, the board spent more than two hours going through the contract point by point, and coming up with questions and counterproposals.
School Board attorney Kimberly Ritchie will put those comments into a new draft and bring it back to board members in mid-May.
Under the current proposal, the Board of Supervisors would drop its takeover attempt in return for the School Board agreeing to 13 points on financial minutiae ranging from purchase orders to the definition of capital improvements.
The School Board also would have to waive the right to sue the Board of Supervisors should it attempt to force a takeover because of failure to comply with the 13 conditions.
Ritchie recommended striking anything about giving up the right to sue. She also suggested modifying the 10-year term of the contract. Board members agreed that a Jan. 1, 1996, renewal date - when the first elected School Board members will take office - would be more appropriate.
Moreover, Ritchie said, the contract is based on the assumption that the Board of Supervisors has the power to force a finance department merger, when there is no legal precedent to support that contention.
Ritchie also said the School Board is under no legal obligation to answer the supervisors' proposal. That led Christiansburg representative David Moore to wonder what would happen if the School Board did nothing and the county pursued the takeover.
"We could tie this up in court until '96 and forget about it," he said. The idea garnered chuckles, but no vocal support.
As part of the proposal, the supervisors have held up $353,000 - the school finance department's remaining appropriation for the current fiscal year - in a special account until the School Board accepts the agreement.
One key element of the schools' counterproposal will be including a reference to that money.
If the School Board doesn't accept the agreement by July 1, the $353,000 automatically will roll back into the county general fund. School officials want to make sure there's some agreement that the Board of Supervisors will allocate that money to the schools.
The School Board did see one beacon of hope in the proposal: a requirement that the schools give the county direct access to its computer accounting system.
Several members, including Vickers, saw giving county officials read-only access to computerized school financial records as a possible solution.
That is one of the county's 13 conditions, but School Board members noted that many of the other requests for data could be answered via the computer, provided the operator had some training in how to use the system.
by CNB