It was discovered Monday that the state has denied an application for $1,519,554 in supplemental aid to the Hoboken Board of Education, creating a large hole in the district’s budget. According to School Business Administrator Anthony Curko, he and his staff are currently going line by line through the budget to see what can be cut.
However, the Board of Education voted Tuesday to give out several new contracts (see sidebar).
“We’re doing our best not to affect current staff members,” said Curko Thursday. “But we do have to find some way to fill about a $900,000 shortfall.” He added that if there are going to be any cuts in regards to personnel, the board would start laying off part-time employees first.
Where the deficit came from
On March 19, Superintendent of Schools Patrick Gagliardi presented a preliminary budget to the board with a $4 million increase in the proposed tax levy. To help fill that gap, School Business Administrator Anthony Curko applied for $1,519,554 in additional state aid. That number was the exact amount of revenue needed to avoid a further tax increase. Curko plugged in $1.5 million in anticipated revenue into the budget, and on April 16, voters approved a $43.75 million spending plan for the 2002-2003 school year.
The state is currently mired in a deep and well-publicized fiscal crisis and recently told the Board of Education that the money is just not there.
The $1.5 million hole absorbs any surplus that the school district had and, according to Curko, leaves the board with a $900,000 deficit to fill.
According to Curko, one thing that the board is doing to close the gap is offering more experienced teachers an incentive to retire. The incentive package includes offering teachers extra credit for saved-up sick days.
Currently, Hoboken is very top heavy when it comes to experienced teachers. The present staff has an inordinate percentage of upper-end salary personnel, according to Curko. According to figures supplied of the state Department of Education, the average faculty salary for Hoboken is $70,677 with a median of 26 years experience. Compare that to Union City, where the average employee makes $39,542 with 10 years experience, or Jersey City, where the median employee has 14 years experience and makes $51,100.
To level the playing field, the board has extended an incentive offer to persuade more experienced teachers to retire. At Monday’s board meeting 13 teachers and three security guards announced their retirements effective June 30.
To help plug the budget gap, the board will hire less experienced and less expensive teachers to fill those positions. As of Thursday, Curko did not say how much the retirements would save the district. He did say that the savings would be “significant.”
Other than the incentive package, Gagliardi and Curko will be spending their time going over the budget with a fine-tooth comb in order to find cuts that are the least detrimental. “I’m hopeful that current staff members will not be affected,” said Curko.
Sidebar
Board of Ed contracts dished out to political heavyweights
At an extremely rushed and poorly scheduled meeting Monday, the Board of Education awarded several possibly lucrative contracts. The special meeting was scheduled for 4 p.m., just an hour and a half before Hoboken High School’s graduation started.
The meeting ran long, and while all business items on the agenda were resolved, there was no time left over for public comment, to the disdain of several members of the public that were present.
During the meeting, the Board of Education awarded six contracts. One went to the Secaucus-based Scarinci and Hollenbeck as special counsel to the Hoboken School District for Abbott (“special needs” school aid) issues. Scarinci and Hollenbeck is one of the most powerful legal firms in Hudson County. The 13-year old firm is well known for its political connections. One of the firm’s partners is Donald Scarinci, a close personal friend and political ally of Rep. Robert Menendez (D-13th Dist.) Menendez is also a close political ally of Hoboken Mayor David Roberts.
Scarinci is now the fourth law firm employed by the Hoboken Board of Education. The board already has general counsel, a law firm for workers compensation issues and an attorney for labor issues.
“Why do we really need four attorneys?” asked board member Michele Russo, wife of former Mayor Anthony Russo, a political opponent of Roberts and Menendez.
Originally, the contract was capped at $72,000. But the dollar figure was removed after board’s Business Administrator Anthony Curko warned the body that the school district is facing some fiscal problems (see main story). The board then amended the contract so that Scarinci will be used on an “as needed” basis, with only Superintendent of Schools Patrick Gagliardi having the authority to approve expenditures.
“If we don’t have the money, we don’t spend it,” said board President John Raslowsky about removing the cap. “It seems like a wise action to me.”
Superintendent of Schools Patrick Gagliardi said, “The bottom line is that right now we don’t have the money.”
Another controversial contract was the one given to Schoor DePalma, of Parsippany, as engineer for future school district projects. Schoor has contributed heavily to the campaigns of Roberts and Menendez. Board member Theresa Burns, who won on Anthony Russo’s board ticket last year, blasted the choice of Schoor. She spent five minutes listing off all political contributions that principals of Schoor have made in the last year. v Board member Jimmy Farina shot back at Burns, “This is irrelevant to the item that we have on the agenda.”
“I just wanted this to see the light of day,” replied Burns. Schoor replaces the firm of Marchetto/Caulfield and Associates. Both Dean Marchetto and James Caulfield were big contributors to former Mayor Russo’s campaign.
“They [Marchetto and Caulfield] gave tens of thousands of dollars to that administration,” noted board member Carmelo Garcia, who is also the city’s director of Human Services.
Other contracts were doled out to Rivardo, Schnitzer and Capazzi of Cliffside Park, as architect to the board; Allied Risk Services of Ocean Township, as third party administrator of the board’s workers’ compensation program; Tri-Tech Engineering of Dover as the board’s engineer, and to the Livingston Insurance Agency of Livingston as broker for the board’s insurance coverage. – Tom Jennemann