Janet Vogtli is pictured during this week’s Gowanda school board meeting.

GOWANDA — Discussion over whether to furlough employees of the Gowanda Central School District or to lay them off caused tempers to, once again, rise during a meeting of the school board this week.

The prolonged back-and-forth between one member of the board and its board president and superintendent ultimately ended in the meeting being adjourned prematurely.

The latest squabble took place Wednesday during a meeting of the Gowanda Central School Board when Superintendent Dr. Robert Anderson asked for a motion to allow him to furlough employees instead of laying them off. School board member Janet Vogtli stated she never received any information and asked if the board was supposed to vote on something they have not read.

Anderson and Dana Szalay-Delaney, school board president, said the document in question was attached to the agendas sent to board members and was posted on their board document website before the meeting began. Also, there was information regarding these furloughs in a memo sent out by the superintendent to the board members on Nov. 20, explaining the job titles that were to be furloughed while the students were not attending in-person classes.

See Vogtli began arguing with Anderson, switching topics from the memorandum of agreement to furloughing employees to student grades, what was in the memo and what wasn’t. Szalay-Delaney eventually stated that the board needed to stay on the discussion of the motion in question. She also explained why the furloughs would be better for the district.

“This is not something we are held to, so if we do decide we are coming back to school we can change it,” she said. “They can come back the very next day, which is why this route is taken of furloughs rather than layoffs because that would be time consuming and not be cost-effective.”

When Szalay-Delaney asked for a vote on the motion, Vogtli interrupted and asked if they had discussion on the matter. The president explained that they had all just discussed the matter for quite a while and did not see a need for a further discussion regarding the topic. Ultimately, the motion passed with Vogtli voting against.

The board then brought up extending the superintendent’s contract by a year.

Vogtli said the motion was “totally inappropriate” because it was not on the agenda. Other board members chimed in, stating that they have accepted motions from the floor that were not on the agenda in previous meetings.

Vogtli began raising her voice at the board. “If you guys want to start this now, fine, we can discuss all of this now Jim, let’s get it all out on the table,” Vogtli said.

Szalay-Delaney, trying to keep composure of the meeting, said, “Let me remind people that we are not discussing personal information. If Jim chooses to make a motion regarding the extension of the superintendent, it will need to be seconded and I will have a vote,” she said. “We can not have discussions regarding personal information. We are voting, we have had plenty of discussions about this.”

Vogtli asked why there would be no discussion about personal information and how long the contract would be for.

“One year, Janet. I listened to parents and parents are happy with what he’s doing,” Hotnich said. “I know you’re smiling and laughing (Vogtli was shaking her head and laughing), but they are happy with what he’s doing.”

Vogtli continued by saying there are a lot of other things to be taken into consideration. “So just because somebody’s happy, you’re OK with it? I know you guys are going to vote (it in) because you’ve made sure you don’t have enough people to stop it,” she said. “It’s foolish for some of us to even be on the board because we don’t have a say.”

The board ultimately voted to approve the extension, with Vogtli again voting no.

Vogtli continued to interrupt the meeting with random comments such as “transparency at it’s finest.” After this comment was made, the board president reminded members that they need to maintain professionalism, being interrupted by Vogtli yet again with a question as to why she was not being professional.

The board then discussed its vacant seat, with following Ronald Cook’s resignation. The motion to accept the resignation and second was given by members, and Szalay-Delaney tried to have a vote on the matter. As she was speaking, Vogtli interrupted her, saying “Don’t we have discussion first? We have discussion after a motion was made and seconded, that’s the way it runs.”

Vogtli said she wanted to make a statement and did so: “Ron was the true leader. He tried to pull everybody together, which he did and he found out that everybody was going their own ways and he left this board because it’s so dysfunctional.”

Many on the board disagreed with the notion.

“Janet, you cannot say things that are untrue. That is not why. You can not speak for Ron,” Szalay-Delaney said. “Ron presented his reason in public and for you to speak for him is inappropriate.”

The resignation was eventually approved.

The board then had to discuss whether they would leave the seat open for the rest of the year, open it up to previous candidates or have another election. Vogtli immediately said that they should leave the spot open because, according to her, a lot of people on the board don’t attend meetings and committees. She said before they put someone else on the board they should be sure that they are going to participate.

When the other board members voiced their opinions on what they should do, which the general consensus was to fill the seat with the fourth candidate, Vogtli interrupted and talked about how current board members don’t participate in any meetings. Eventually, the president had to interrupt her and explain that that was not part of the discussion at hand.

A motion to fill the seat was passed, with Vogtli voting no.

The last topic the board discussed was whether to replace Cook’s positions on the committees he was on now or to wait until the new board member was in place and have him fill those roles. Most of the board agreed to wait to fill the seats until a new board member is in place. Vogtli did not agree and shifted the focus onto the fact that Szalay-Delaney and other board members discussed that they should take a look at all of the committees they have and discuss them at a later date to see which ones are necessary or not.

At this point in the meeting, board member David Barnes chimed in late, saying that he was not given the information to join the meeting and he had been struggling to join. Barnes asked if he could say something and was granted the ability.

“So we’re going to get rid of committees just because board members don’t want to participate and do their job, so going to cut back what we do,” he said. The president tried to explain that that was not what was said, being cut off by yelling from Barnes demanding her to not interrupt him.

“I am in the middle of a discussion and I will finish,” he yelled. “We have students that are failing that nobody wants to talk about. We have a superintendent that is allowing people to steal from the school district and he is participating.”

At that point, Szalay-Delaney interrupted Barnes and made a motion to end the meeting. The motion was seconded by Barnes and agreed upon by all members.

“Have a good night and we will reconvene,” she said. “Hopefully our next meeting will be more professional.”