A record-keeping error caused needless concern for School Committee Chairman Keith Cheveralls, who has reviewed Schools Superintendent Tom Jefferson’s new contract and is satisfied that it contains no unwarranted changes as previously believed.
The contract was granted by the School Committee, with no approved change except for its end date, on April 27. Cheveralls expressed concerns on May 12 that it contained other changes versus Jefferson’s most recent contract.
Cheveralls explained at Tuesday’s School Committee meeting that he had unwittingly been comparing the new, extended contract to a 2005 version of the contract, which did not reflect a number of changes that had been made in the intervening years. As a result, he had been surprised at the differences between the two versions. Once he obtained a copy of the current contract and reviewed it with School Committee counsel Naomi Stonberg, he was satisfied that the new contract contained no unexpected changes.
Cheveralls noted that he had obtained the outdated version of the contract from Town Hall, where it was the most recent one on record. “I remain concerned that I got the wrong document because it was the only one on file,” he told the committee. He stressed the need for better record-keeping, and that current documents should be on file in at least two places. Committee member Stu Sklar concurred, pointing out that the recent concerns over the schools’ heating-oil system also had been caused, in part, by inadequate records on file.
