The Woodland Park School District's chief financial officer has resigned only months into his tenure that was wrought with scrutiny and alleged political strong-arming.
Jack Bay had been Woodland Park RE-2's CFO since Aug. 19 and resigned from his position Feb. 17. Before and during this time, the school district's finances were the subject of heated debate with the local city council regarding how exactly they were utilizing their sales tax revenue.
Woodland Park voters approved a local 1.09% sales tax in 2016 earmarked specifically for funding its public schools. An intergovernmental agreement between the school district and city council was then agreed upon that requires regular reports on the tax to be submitted for the sake of transparency.
Previous reports presented to the council had been deemed unsatisfactory or inadequate to what was agreed upon between the two bodies, with the council threatening to repeal the tax - which accounted for over $3 million of the district's revenue last year- if corrective actions weren't taken.
The latest report submitted to the council became the latest case of an unsatisfactory report leading to the potential elimination of the sales tax. During the Feb. 6 city council meeting, the district sent a one-page summary of the tax revenue's allocation largely composed by Bay to meet the required Jan. 31 deadline.
When council members expressed disappointment, if not frustration, with the presentation, they were quickly presented with a more in-depth report. A separate report composed by Merit Academy CFO Leanna Tally for the district's charter school in coordination with city manager Aaron Vassalotti received verbal approval from council members.
In a phone call with Pikes Peak Courier editor Doug Fitzgerald, Woodland Park school board president Mick Bates said that Bay "needed more supervision than he got" during his time with the district and that the initial financial report presented to the council was "a miserable attempt."
"I was embarrassed with what was turned in," he said. "But we got that all cured."
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Bay told the Gazette's news partner KOAA that he resigned because of the conflicts over the reporting of their sales tax allocation, calling the actions by city council members "political attacks on the district" and continued harassment.
During a phone call with KOAA's Maggie Bryan, Bay also pointed to the high staff turnover the district was experiencing as a factor in his decision. The Colorado Department of Education reported a 36% staff turnover rate from the 2022-2023 to 2023-2024 school years.
Prior to Bay's resignation, the council passed an ordinance to put a vote to repeal the tax on the general election ballot that stemmed from similar dissatisfaction from the school district's reporting. The vote would go on to fail approximately 42% to 58%.
At their Feb. 20 meeting, the city council advanced a new ordinance to repeal the tax that is set for a public hearing and vote on March 6. The legality of the proposed ordinance has already been debated between the two governmental bodies' legal representatives.
Bates said the ongoing struggles between the two governmental bodies are rooted in "some personal agendas."
"It seems like no matter what we did, they [the council] asked for more," he said.
Pikes Peak Courier Editor Doug Fitzgerald contributed to these reports.