BRISTOL — After five years serving as the chief financial officer of the Mount Abraham Unified School District, Howard Mansfield has resigned, effective July 5.
Mansfield’s two-sentence resignation letter, dated March 25, did not specify his reasons for resigning, but it did request “an exit meeting/interview exclusively with the board prior to leaving my position.”
The MAUSD board refused his request. After accepting his resignation on March 26, the board directed Mansfield to “submit an exit interview letter to the administration” instead.
Mansfield did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
MAUSD Superintendent Patrick Reen praised Mansfield’d dedication.
“In his time at ANESU/MAUSD Howard was instrumental in our transition to a unified school district and helped prepare information for three bond votes to renovate Mt. Abraham Union Middle/High School,” Reen said in an email to the Independent.
Instead of hiring a new CFO, the district has decided to do away with Mansfield’s position and replace it with a new one — Business Manager.
“The change from CFO to business manager is simply to better reflect the realities of the job,” Reen explained in a separate email. “The vast majority of the responsibilities of the job are the same. As I see it, the greatest difference is in the level of autonomy and authority of decision making. A business manager, as I see it, works more in support of the superintendent while a CFO may have more autonomy.” In the end, he added, “It’s mostly semantics.”
On June 7 Reen announced he had hired Floyd Davison to fill the new position.
“Floyd’s sense of community and interpersonal skills along with his background in finance make him a great addition to the MAUSD team,” Reen said in a public statement.
A Bristol resident with children in MAUSD schools, Davison is a former employee of the Vermont Agency of Human Services.
Reach Christopher Ross at [email protected].