By Patrick Adrian
EAGLE TIMES STAFF
UNITY — The Unity Free Library has incurred more than $56,000 so far in legal and accounting service fees since September, far exceeding its operating budget of $41,556.
An ex parte motion filed on Thursday in Sullivan County Superior Court is asking the court to order the immediate removal of library trustee Sally Teague for making a number of payments from the library’s accounts without authorization or consulting with the other trustees.
The new motion is part of a larger complaint filed by Deborah Leahy, a former library trustee, and Carolyn Kapchensky, the former library assistant, to order the reopening of the Unity Free Library, which has been officially closed since July 15 without a confirmed reopening date or plan.
In July, the Unity Selectboard, along with a majority of the Unity Free Library Board of Trustees, took control of town library operations after months of questions about the library’s stewardship under the former trustees board Chair and Treasurer Gordon Brann.
In addition to replacing Brann as chair the previous month, the two boards closed the library until the completion of a forensic audit of the library, transferred the library’s treasury oversight to the town, and moved the library’s $52,081.78 in total funds to a new bank.
In September, library trustees Teague and Jedidiah Stopyro took legal action against their colleague, Brann, alleging that he was withholding financial records needed for the governing bodies to complete the forensic audit and fill the Right-to-Know request.
Those legal costs have so far cost more than $37,000, according to draft minutes of the Unity Free Library Board of Trustees on Tuesday, Dec. 14.
The minutes also state that Teague allegedly paid more than $42,000 in invoices from the library’s accounts. Those payments include $27,902.79 in legal fees to Upton & Hatfield, a Concord-based law firm, and $14,742.50 to Graham & Veroff, an accounting firm based in Springfield, Vermont, who are completing the forensic audit.
Meanwhile, the library still has two outstanding bills — one from Upton & Hatfield for $4,500 and one from Graham & Veroff for $9,500.
“At no time prior to approving these expenditures did Sally Teague meet with the board of trustees,” said Melanie Bell, attorney for Leahy and Kapchenski. “In fact, at the [Dec.14] meeting the other two trustees opposed the audit expenditures.”
According to the meeting minutes, Brann noted that the Unity Selectboard had ordered the audit and therefore the town should be responsible for the cost.
The new motion also alleges that Teague misappropriated funds by paying more than $26,000 in legal fees from a library account designated for employee salaries.
“It appears from a review of the expenditure work papers that [Teague] presented at the December 14 trustee meeting that she simply added ‘legal’ as a line-item appropriation without seeking appropriate approvals [under state law],” Bell states in the ex parte motion.
According to the meeting minutes, Teague claimed she “had been told that the library needed to pay these invoices,” though when asked further Teague “could not remember who told her this.”
Attorney Michael Courtney, representing Teague, asked Sullivan County Superior Court Judge Brian Tucker for a 20-day window to file an objection to the ex parte motion.
The library trustees are working to schedule a joint meeting with the Unity Selectboard next week, tentatively on Tuesday, Dec. 21, to discuss the library’s bank accounts and the financial activity that has occurred since the library’s closure.
Central to ongoing conflict is the library’s total funds, which totaled $52,081.78 when the selectboard and trustees closed the library in July.
The selectboard initially took issue with Brann’s financial management after Brann acknowledged that some portion of those funds derived from unspent money from the town’s annual library budget. By law, unspent budgets are supposed to return to the taxpayers at the end of the fiscal year, unless approved by the voters.
However, it is not yet determined how much of the library’s total funds are public money as opposed to private donations, library revenues or other sources.
At a hearing on Friday, Bell acknowledged that Brann erred in retaining unspent budget money in the library funds but denied that Brann ever misspent any money from the accounts.
Brann has also signed a sworn affidavit saying that he has turned every record in his possession over to the auditor.
“This all started because there was too much library money,” Bell told Tucker. “Suddenly they are running out of library money because unilaterally Ms. Teague is writing checks to pay for [attorneys] and for this audit.”
reporter @eagletimes.com
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