Four days after voters approved a $2 million reduction to the Merrimack Valley School District’s budget for next year, board members clashed with their superintendent over who would have the final say over cuts.

The conflict arose during a board meeting Monday when Superintendent Randy Wormald told the members that administrators would develop a plan for reductions and the board’s job would simply be to “approve” it.

“The purview of the board is to approve the plan,” he said. “We contacted some other districts that went through this same thing. Some of them didn’t even ask for formal approval from the board but we feel that’s a necessary step as part of this process.”

Several board members bristled at Wormald’s description of the board’s role.

“I just think that the process should be very different,” newly elected board member Tom Laliberte said. “I would love the opportunity to share what I’m thinking and the questions that I have, but I just feel like I’m being shut down right now.”

Wormald said he was relying upon the legal opinion of the district’s attorney, James O’Shaughnessy, in describing the division of responsibilities.

“Respectfully, if I have word from legal counsel and your opinion,” Wormald said to Laliberte, “it’s my job to go with the word of legal counsel.”

He did not elaborate on the legal opinion during the meeting, nor did he respond to a request for clarification on Tuesday.

O’Shaughnessy also did not respond to a request for comment.

School board chair Tracy Bricchi said Monday that she would contact O’Shaughnessy to get more information. She had yet to reach him as of Tuesday morning.

The process laid out by Wormald contrasts markedly with how the Pembroke school board proceeded last year in the wake of a $3 million reduction. There, administrators presented recommendations but left the final decision-making up to the board members.

The board held several meetings in which it solicited feedback from the public, weighed programmatic decisions in public session, and discussed the elimination of specific positions in non-public session.

The dispute over how to proceed comes as the board and administrators face questions about transparency. The district’s $2 million over-expenditure last school year, which was disclosed in January, was a frequent topic during last week’s annual meeting.

Residents voted 267-250 at the annual meeting to set next year’s operating budget at $49.7 million, $2 million less than the $51.7 million the district had asked residents to approve.

The approved budget is about $1 million more than the budget for the current school year but administrators say contracted salaries, benefits and special education costs have risen even further.

Terese Bastarache, the lead organizer behind last week’s vote, threatened to cut the budget in half next year if district didn’t become more transparent.

“We need to know exactly where the dollars are going if you want our support,” she said.

Bastarache and others filed a petition with the board Monday calling on the district to conduct a forensic audit of spending last year. While the district is in the process of engaging a firm to conduct a standard audit, it is not as involved as a forensic audit would entail.

Part of the tension between Wormald and some members of the board and public revolves around the impact of the cuts.

Wormald on Monday estimated the budget reduction would lead to the elimination of 15 to 20 positions, though he stressed that the number of people who would be laid off would likely be lower, due to retirements and the fact that some positions are currently unfilled.

Laliberte questioned that number and said he had already found roughly $1 million the district could come up with that would not involve eliminating positions, including a $300,000 surplus in the district’s food service. He also proposed re-allocating money currently set aside for the district’s capital improvement projects.

“I don’t think we need to lose 14 positions,” he said. “I think it can be far, far, far fewer than that. And I think it would be wise to have a conversation and talk about some of these lines.”

Wormald and Bricchi directed Laliberte to send his ideas to Bricchi, and Wormald said administrators had already begun considering some of the possibilities Laliberte proposed.

“We’re turning over every stone to look for ways that we can reduce the number of positions” to eliminate, Wormald said. “Because that’s the last thing that we want to do. I wish that that number was zero.”

Wormald said part of the logistical challenge was that administrators wanted to inform employees who could lose their jobs prior to their positions being discussed in a public board meeting.

He said board members could have some say “around the fringes” at a board meeting on March 24 when administrators present the plan. By then, however, employees on the list will have already been notified.

“My concern right now is that as a board member I’m going to walk out here tonight and we won’t have any further say before people are told that their job might be on the line,” newly elected board member Stacie Jarvis said.

Jeremy Margolis can be contacted at jmargolis@cmonitor.com.