New London — The Board of Education on Thursday night unanimously approved two memorandums of understanding to begin the consolidation of the city and school district finance and maintenance departments, a requirement for the district to be released from state supervision.

Though the two agreements do not set in stone how the soon-to-be-centralized departments will function, they provide the framework the city and board will use as the consolidation process unfolds.

“These agreements set in motion more detailed work that must occur to detail how this will actually work,” Superintendent Manuel J. Rivera said.

Board Vice President Rob Funk echoed Rivera’s sentiments, saying the MOUs are “basic in nature” and “do not hammer out the final agreement.”

Completion of the two agreements — which are yet to be approved by the City Council — is a “technical requirement” to the district’s release from state involvement as outlined earlier this year by state-appointed Special Master Steven J. Adamowski.

The formation of joint city and Board of Education finance and maintenance departments is also required for the city to appropriate any of the nearly $200 million in bonding the City Council authorized last year to build a new high and middle school.

The finance department agreement calls for the fiscal operations of both the city and the school district to be consolidated under one unified finance department and a single chief financial officer.

The CFO will be charged to “identify opportunities to unify and streamline financial processes performed by both the BoE and the city” with an ultimate objective of creating one finance department. The finance officer will directly manage and supervise all city or district employees who handle payroll, budgeting, risk management, financial planning, revenue collection and other financial functions.

The city and the Board of Education, using both elected and appointed officials, will work together to recruit, interview and select a CFO to consolidate and then run the unified department. The conditions of the finance officer's employment must be agreed to by the city and board, and his or her salary and benefits will be split evenly between the city and the Board of Education.

The CFO will report to and be evaluated by both the mayor and the superintendent of schools, both of whom will provide the finance officer with a list of annual goals and objectives. The joint concurrence of the mayor and superintendent will be required to terminate the CFO’s employment.

A second memorandum would create the position of director of facilities maintenance to determine how best to combine the city and district maintenance functions into a joint facilities maintenance department, over which the director would then assume leadership.

The director of facilities maintenance would be employed solely by the Board of Education, but would report to both the mayor and the superintendent. As with the CFO, the director’s compensation package must be agreed upon by the city and district.

The agreement calls for the city and Board of Education to share the costs of the director and the eventual department “on a basis to be determined and budgeted.”

c.young@theday.com

Twitter: @ColinAYoung