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There’s a lesson for the school board in Mrs. Frances “Tiny” Carney’s resignation as bookkeeper after six years in the position.
At last week’s meeting, Nelson Lane laid the blame for Mrs. Carney’s increased workload on federal and state regulations, bureaucracy and red tape, not on the school board’s insistence that Carney give them a bi-monthly update on the school budget.
But workload is not the reason for the resignation the board accepted with regret later in the meeting. The bimonthly budget report played a part in Carney’s decision to leave but only as it reflected the school board’s posture of suspicion.
In a letter to superintendent William Bloomer and school board chairman Beverly Massie, Mrs. Carney pointed to insinuations of administrative and instructional incompetence and an attitude of mistrust and pettiness as causes for her departure.
At the same time she praised rapport in the school board office, attributing the atmosphere there to Dr. Bloomer’s common sense, good judgment and humor. She maintained also that the board’s constant interference in matters outside its scope of authority was affecting efficiency and morale of many in the system.
In an interview, Mrs. Carney contrasted the board’s suspicious scrutiny of financial records with professional accountant Nancy Blackenbaker’s description of the Rappahannock school system’s books as some of the best among the 26 counties her firm handles. Last week, the books once again passed annual audit with flying colors.
According to Mrs. Carney, she’s been doing regular inter-office budget updates, sometimes by line items but usually by categories, since 1976.
“But I didn’t feel I had to proof if. If I made a mistake transferring row after
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