JAY – If a vote was taken Monday night on signing a warrant to pay for school software, it would have passed.

Selectmen would have voted 4-1 to pay for the software with Selectman Warren Bryant opposed, a consensus showed.

School Committee members voted to buy software on Thursday. Selectmen had asked them to remove it from the budget, prior to voters approving it in June.

Even before the issue got to the point of discussion, board Chairman Steve McCourt spoke words that diffused what could have been a potentially controversial situation.

“There seems to be a lot of tension between the superintendent and school board and the town manager and selectmen,” McCourt said. “Even though we’re different departments, we’re all one entity here. We work for the town of Jay. We work for the people of Jay.”

McCourt said he hoped discussions would be more open in the future and more information would be provided.

The School Committee had budgeted for the software and personnel in SAD 36 to do payroll and accounts payable. After selectmen received a legal opinion that stated the town would need to continue to provide those services to Jay schools because it is a town department, the School Committee removed the personnel cost but not money for the software. The software has eight components for school use, including building a budget, employee contracts and reports to be sent to the state.

School Committee Chairwoman Mary Redmond-Luce said she agreed with McCourt. She had done some thinking since Thursday’s meeting when selectmen and Town Manager Ruth Marden said they understood that the software was taken out of the budget.

She said she had thought “How could we have miscommunicated so much?”

Redmond-Luce said the school board understood that it would need to go through the town finance manager for at least this year.

“This was no way an attempt to circumvent that,” Redmond-Luce said.

Redmond-Luce said the software would allow reports, budgets, and contracts to be done more efficiently and be compared to other school systems with the same software. The only two school departments that don’t have the software are Jay and Wiscasset, Redmond-Luce said.

She apologized if it came across to selectmen that they were trying to circumvent the town’s oversight of municipal money.

Marden said it was her understanding that the School Committee needs to know before money is spent and not afterward if selectmen plan to sign the warrant to pay for the software.

“We did call up our legal rep and did get some legal information from them,” Redmond-Luce said, but would much rather handle it as a matter of courtesy. She presented the packet to Marden.

This animosity between selectmen, the Budget Committee, and the School Committee needs to stop, Selectman Steve Barker said.

“Let’s get it over with Let’s get it done. Let’s get along,” Barker said.

Instead of voting, selectmen took a consensus.

McCourt said he had pondered the matter and if it will help the process to move along and let them submit reports, he was for it. He also noted that if both Jay and SAD 36 have the software both licenses would expire if they joined together but they’d both receive credit for what they have.

Vice Chairman Warren Bryant said he still believed when it was removed from the budget, it was removed from the budget.

He said the town has a lot of needs and lot of wants.

“I think the needs need to be taken care of before the wants. I wouldn’t sign it,” he said.