Routine committee reports were anything but routine at Wednesday evening’s work session of the Weatherly Area School Board.

Weatherly Area School Board member Matthew vonFrisch called into question the operations and finances of the Carbon Lehigh Intermediate Unit 21. VonFrisch is the board’s liaison to the CLIU.

According to its website, the CLIU is an agency the job of which is “to facilitate inter-district cooperation, provide educational and administrative services to schools, and function as a link between the Pennsylvania Department of Education and local school districts.”

Implying a lack of oversight, he said of the agency, “There are no committees. Everything is rubber-stamped. There’s no media there to cover the meetings.”

He noted that the CLIU has a budget of $92 million and has more than $24 million in reserves. “They made $4.5 million on investments this year. Yet we have to struggle here trying not to raise taxes. It didn’t go over very well,” he said.

He added that the CLIU recently purchased 10 vans at a cost of around a quarter-million dollars “and they didn’t even sell or trade-in the 10 vans they are replacing.”

Superintendent Teresa Young joined with vonFrisch in calling the organization’s finances into question.

“We pay a lot of money to send our kids there and they raised their fee again this year.”

In other business, the board approved the plans for the senior class trip to Pittsburgh scheduled for May 31 through June 2.

The board also approved Jan. 21 as a makeup day for the canceled classes on Nov. 16 due to a snowstorm.

A new mascot design was also approved though artwork has not yet been made available. Angela Gregory, a student at Weatherly Area, submitted the new design.

Before the work session, the board conducted its reorganization meeting. Girard Fewins was re-elected president of the board with Chad Obert as vice president.

Gerard Grega was nominated for the position of alternative representative to the CCTI board but refused the nomination. Shay Wagner was then nominated and voted in.

Board member Georgann Herling reported that the Ladies Auxiliary conducted a very successful drive at the Weatherly schools to collect crew socks for veterans. The auxiliary collected 828 pairs of socks and will be distributing them to veterans at Heritage Hill, Weatherwood and the VA Medical Center. She expressed deep gratitude to the board and administration.

“It’s very hard for our units to get into schools.”

The board will meet in its monthly public session at 7 p.m. Dec. 12.