Burlington College neglected to make contributions to the retirement funds of staff members this summer.

In an email sent to employees Monday, President Christine Plunkett called it an “inadvertent oversight as our staff balanced many responsibilities over the summer” that was "neither a planned nor intentional step," and she assured her staff that their accounts were being swiftly replenished.

The college failed to deposit both the employee contributions — which come directly from their paychecks — and the employer match.

"This is, of course, a grave concern," Plunkett's email continues, "as the contributions include your own employee funds as well as College contributions. I am well aware of the legal obligations to remit those funds in a timely manner."

Joellen Leavelle, outreach manager for the Pension Rights Center in Washington, D.C., said employers are legally obligated to deposit employee contributions within seven days, but failing to meet that requirement is a common problem. “We’re glad the college realized the mistake and worked as fast as it could to correct the problem, and we hoped it learned from its mistake and will not do it in the future,” Leavelle said.

Does it matter that a self-described Democrat running for the Burlington School Board is getting bankrolled by conservative supporters? That question is fueling lively debate among residents in the New North End's Ward 7, where there’s a competitive, three-way race for a seat that opened up when Greg Jenkins resigned several months ago. 

Former school board member Linda Deliduka, who lost her seat last March to newcomer David Kirk, is facing off against Kevin Garrison and Ed McMahon. The election is Tuesday.

The candidates all live within a few blocks of one another in the Village Green neighborhood. The school board is considered a nonpartisan body, but Garrison's political affiliations are causing a stir. 

Lenore Broughton, who funneled more than $1 million into the conservative super PAC Vermonters First, gave Garrison $500, according to the August 18 campaign finance disclosures. Scot Shumski, a conservative and outspoken member of the school board who is also running for state representative, is acting as Garrison's campaign manager. He introduced Garrison to Broughton and also encouraged the Burlington Republicans to help out. The party chipped in $150. 

A self-described "Blue Dog Democrat," Garrison points out that he's got Democrats backing him, too, including City Councilors Tom Ayres, Dave Hartnett and Bianka Legrand. He sees his bipartisan backing as a good thing. "I come from humble roots, and I’ve been able to build a coalition of people that support me — Republicans, Democrats and independents. At the end of the day, I think that’s what we need to move forward with our schools." 

Garrison said Shumski's a good friend — they went to high school together — and they are both focused on reining in school spending while promoting "better outcomes for students." On other topics? "We agree to disagree, and we only talk about the things we agree on," he said. As for his meeting with Broughton, "She’s a sweet lady. I sat down and I talked to her and I look forward to talking to her again if I have the need to… and she was concerned about the outcomes for our students just as much as I was, and basically that’s what our conversation was based on."

Regardless of who gives him money and helps on his campaigns, Garrison insisted, "I’m a man of my own convictions, my own values, my own ideas."

Not everyone is convinced. "We are who we keep company with," said Jenkins, who's supporting Deliduka. "If Kevin really thinks that the company he keeps is going to have no bearing on the way he is going to govern on the school board, then he is very naïve."

Ayres said he's had to defend his endorsement of a candidate  who's also getting support from the far-right side of the aisle. "Quite frankly, people kind of freaked out when they saw the 'Kevin Garrison for School Board' on my lawn," he said.

The Democratic councilor continues to support Garrison but he actually shares some of his neighbors' concerns. In a post on Front Porch Forum, he wrote, "Those of us who have been elected to local and state office know that the financial, political, and logistical support of Scot Shumski, ultra-conservative funder Lenore Broughton, and others from the far-right fringe comes with expectations and a price tag."

Ayres said he and others are concerned that the national organization, American Majority — which trains conservatives to run for down-ballot offices — could make inroads on the Burlington School Board. Shumski participated in a training earlier this year before winning his election. "Much of this discussion has focused on Kevin’s association, to put it bluntly, with a skillful, well-organized, and well-funded group of far-right, ultra-conservative Tea Party activists seeking to gain a foothold in Burlington and communities in our region," Ayres wrote in a Front Porch Forum post.

In a Front Porch Forum post titled "The Real Scot Shumski," Shumski defended his intentions. "Whether it's my role on the Burlington School Board or my candidacy for the statehouse its about improving the community I live in ... Let me close by focusing NOT on the poisonous, negative attack launched by Tom Ayres (that really serves no purpose but to distract and divide our community) but rather on what is truly important, electing Kevin Garrison to the Burlington School Board from Ward 7. Knowing that my children will have another tireless advocate for them on the school board is what drives me in my support for Kevin Garrison."

According to Shumski, people like Ayres are the ones politicizing the school board race. "There a small minority of extreme radicals in the New North End who are making an issue of it," he said in an interview. "Do you think people as principled as Kevin and I are going to be swayed by someone who contributed to us?" During his door-knocking rounds, Garrison also said he's seen "no evidence" that people are concerned by his Republican supporters. 

Garrison added that he had to look up what American Majority was to figure out what people were alarmed about. "I'm going to accept the support from all parties and I think that's what we need to move forward," he said.

For Deliduka, there's a déjà vu quality to the situation. Last March, Kirk clobbered her on the fundraising front, and he too was helped along by a $1,000 donation from Broughton. (Kirk raised roughly $2,500 total while Deliduka brought in less than $500.) So far, Garrison has raised $1,500. Deliduka said she just recently crossed the $500 mark. 

Deliduka declined to weigh in on her opponent and his Republican supporters. " I don't want to put out anything that says I’m concerned about that. Where we should be putting our time and thoughts is on the schools."

McMahon couldn't be reached for comment. 

Interrupted repeatedly at a town hall meeting last weekend, an irate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) yelled at disruptive audience members: "Shut up!"

The meeting, at Cabot's Willey Building Auditorium on Saturday, grew so heated that Sanders' outreach director, Phil Fiermonte, called the cops, according to Vermont State Police spokeswoman Stephanie Dasaro. Four troopers arrived partway through the event, but took no action.

"They basically were just there as a presence," Dasaro said. "Other than that, we didn't get involved. There was no disorderly conduct. No one was arrested."

A seven-minute video of the meeting was posted to YouTube Sunday by Marie Countryman, a Montpelier activist:
  

Updated at 4:53 p.m.

Former U.S. senator Jim Jeffords, an iconic independent and veteran Vermont politician, died Monday at age 80.

Near the end of his 40-year career in public office, the Rutland Republican stunned the nation in May 2001 when he left his party to become an independent. The move handed control of a closely divided Senate to the Democratic Party for the next 18 months and earned Jeffords a place in political history.

But according to his longtime chief of staff, Susan Boardman Russ, Jeffords’ most important contribution was not his defection from the GOP, but his decades of work fighting for education, the environment, dairy farmers and the disabled.

“That’s his legacy. That’s what mattered to him,” Boardman Russ said. “The publicity he got for switching parties I sometimes wish hadn’t happened because all those incredible things he did over those years got lost.”

Jeffords died Monday morning at the Knollwood Military Retirement Residence in Washington, D.C., where he had lived since the death of his wife, Liz, in 2007, according to former spokeswoman Diane Derby. 

The Shumlin administration is parting ways with CGI, the vendor that built Vermont's still-incomplete health insurance exchange, Vermont Health Connect.

The decision to end the contract is "mutual," according to Mark Larson, commissioner of the Department of Vermont Health Access. He announced the news at a press conference this morning, alongside Lawrence Miller, whom Gov. Peter Shumlin recently appointed as chief of health care reform.

CGI has already received $57 million of Vermont's $83 million contract and, under the agreement, the Canadian company will leave the Green Mountain State with another $9.7 million, according to Miller. He noted that 97 percent of the exchange cost is federally funded.

Since the federal government ditched CGI in January, many Vermonters have been clamoring for state officials to do the same. Miller acknowledged that people will view the step as long overdue. 

"There's no doubt in my mind that the biggest question is going to be, 'Why the hell didn't you do this months ago?'" he said.

Updated at 12:38 p.m.

As he continues to explore a 2016 run for president, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) will return to the first-in-the-nation caucus state of Iowa this September.

Sanders plans to hold town meetings in Dubuque, Waterloo and Des Moines the weekend of September 13, according to spokesman Michael Briggs. Sanders will combine the trip with a previously scheduled appearance in Wisconsin at the Fighting Bob Fest, an annual gathering to celebrate the life of progressive icon — and senator-turned-presidential candidate — Robert La Follette.

September's trip will mark Sanders' second to the Hawkeye State this year. He traveled to Iowa City in May to headline the Clinton County Democratic Party's Hall of Fame Dinner and, according to the Daily Beast, met with activists there and in Des Moines. Sanders has also held political events twice in New Hampshire this year, in April and June.

Last week, Sanders reported raising an unusually large sum of money for a year in which he does not face reelection. The Vermont independent collected nearly $716,000 in the past three months, boosting his campaign treasury to $4.4 million. Sanders, who was reelected to a second six-year term in 2012, will not have to defend his Senate seat again until 2018.

In its first meeting since the Supreme Court effectively voided Burlington's buffer zone, the City Council voted unanimously Monday to start "urgently investigating and supporting legally defensible alternatives that ensure women’s safety and access to healthcare services."

On June 26, the nation's highest court ruled that a buffer zone law in Massachusetts, created to prevent protesters from coming within 35 feet of reproductive health centers, violated the First Amendment.

Burlington had erected a similar buffer zone in 2012, but upon the advice of city attorney Eileen Blackwood, the city stopped enforcing it after the ruling. Part of the city's law remains in place. Blackwood explained that while the zone itself has been dismantled, people are still prohibited from "obstructing, detaining, hindering, impeding, or blocking a person's entry or exit from a clinic." 

The sidewalks of St. Paul Street, where Planned Parenthood runs a clinic, have gotten more crowded, according to Jill Krowinski, public affairs director for Planned Parenthood in Vermont. Prior to the ruling, a handful of protesters showed up one or two days a week. Now they're outside four to five days a week, and last Saturday, there was crowd of roughly 20 people, according to Krowinski.

As the city council's ordinance committee considers its options, Krowinski described the tactic that Burlington's Planned Parenthood is employing: "The more protestors we see, the more greeters we’ll have." 

The Supreme Court ruling suggested that Massachusetts' buffer zone wasn't "narrowly tailored," and people seeking reproductive health services could be protected using other means. It stated, “A painted line is easy to enforce, but the prime objective of the First Amendment is not efficiency.”

One of the potential long-term options suggested by Blackwood would make it a criminal rather than a civil offense to violate the still-standing part of the city's ordinance. Krowinski said that Planned Parenthood is working with its other affiliates to find alternatives, too. One possibility they are considering: asking the City Council to establish a "bubble" in lieu of a buffer that would create a barrier around patients rather than a building. The Supreme Court upheld Colorado's "bubble" law in 2000. 

At Monday's meeting, Krowinski described protestors "persistently following and engaging with patients even when they say they are not interested" and taking photos and video footage of people entering the St. Paul Street facility. 

Two of those protestors were also at the city council meeting and disputed her account. "We are being misrepresented here," said Agnes Clift. "We will continue to be there praying and offering support and literature to people."

The Burlington school district is asking the City Council for an interest-free loan of up to $4.8 million to make sure it can pay its bills during a 90-day period.

Confronted with the possibility that it will temporarily run out of cash — a common situation for school districts across the state, according to school board chair Patrick Halladay — the Burlington School Board's finance committee has been looking for a line of credit.

"This is nothing that would be considered atypical," Halladay said, adding that the cash flow situation doesn't stem from the district's deficit troubles. "The complication we have this time is this hasn’t been how things have been done in Burlington in the past."

Up until July 1, the city and the school district shared a pooled cash account. If the school district was running low on money and needed to send out paychecks or pay for other expenses, it could temporarily draw on city funds. They terminated that arrangement and separated their accounts at the request of the Agency of Education.  

In early June, the school board asked the City Council for a loan of up to $2.6 million at a 0.5 percent interest rate. At the time, several councilors on the board of finance expressed misgivings about approving such a low interest rate. Before the council had a chance to vote on the request, both city and school officials found at that state law doesn't actually allow municipalities to charge schools interest on loans.

Summer camp for the kids at Burlington's Boys and Girls Club began Monday with a series of speeches delivered by men in suits. The campers plucked clover in Roosevelt Park as the politicians and philanthropists offered inspirational advice. 

Arguably the best-dressed and indisputably the oldest of the men in suits was 96-year-old Tony Pomerleau, who was there to dole out something more concrete to the Club: $1 million. 

To put that in perspective: According to GuideStar, the Club recorded $1.4 million in revenue in 2012— most of which came from grants and donations. The gift, to be paid in installments over the next decade, is the largest in the club's history, according to its executive director, Mary Alice MacKenzie.

"If Tony Pomerleau didn't give one more gift in his life he would go down in history as one of the most generous Vermonters this state has ever seen," MacKenzie said. "But he hasn't stopped and we are very very lucky that he has believed that what we are doing with our education program is worthy of a very very big gift from him."

The Burlington school board won’t be taking Mayor Miro Weinberger up on his offer of dispatching Bob Rusten, the city’s chief administrative officer, to patch up the district’s finances.

Instead, the finance committee has approved a motion to ink a contract with a financial consultant — Ed Gomeau, according to one its members, Scot Shumksi. Gomeau has previously served as the New Haven Public Schools’ finance director in Connecticut, and as business manager for the Addison Northeast Supervisory Union in Vermont, according to the Addison Independent.

The school board is also looking for a permanent finance director to replace David Larcombe, who is resigning on June 30. It recently appointed an acting superintendent to oversee the schools while it searches for a replacement for Jeanne Collins, who is also stepping down at the end of the month. 

Weinberger made his offer on April 28, after the public learned that serious budgeting problems had led to the district’s repeat deficits. The City Council voted 12-1 in favor of the arrangement.