The investigation into where $7.4 million in money reimbursed by the New Jersey Department of Education to the Bayonne Board of Education for school capital projects could be finalized by a report from the state sometime in the next month.
Representatives of Bayonne City Hall and the Bayonne Board of Education said that May meetings in Bayonne involving the state, city, and board may well have offered the final pieces of information needed for the state to makes its conclusions.
“We sat with them, with two investigators, in early May, and we gave them all of our logic and our backup, and they in turn said they’d get back to us,” said BBOE Assistant Administrator/Business Administrator Leo Smith Jr. on Monday, Aug. 10. “We haven’t heard anything yet.”
Bayonne Chief of Staff Andrew Casais said on Aug. 6 that the city also met with the state investigators in May. On May 21, the state requested and received copies of the ordinances pertaining to the projects the city had bonded for the board of education, according to Casais.
Both Smith and Casais said the state board of education did not indicate when its report would be issued. But a City Hall source said the report was expected to come after the Labor Day weekend, at the start of the new school year.
“We sat with them, with two investigators, in early May, and we gave them all of our logic and our backup, and they in turn said they’d get back to us.” – Leo Smith, Jr.
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The story about the missing money broke during the first week of January, when it was revealed that City Business Administrator Joseph DeMarco sent a memo on Dec. 19 last year to Schools Superintendent Patricia McGeehan questioning the whereabouts of the money which had been reimbursed by the state DOE’s School Development Authority.
According to DeMarco, the city, serving as bonding agent for up to a dozen projects completed at Bayonne schools, should have received the $7.4 million from the board of education to honor its bond obligations.
Because of the type of school district Bayonne was classified as at the time of the projects, the city had to pass a bonding ordinance for any capital improvement, according to Bayonne Chief Financial Officer Terrence Malloy. The money was then given to the school system to spend on the project(s), the SDA reimbursed the district, and the city should then have been reimbursed.
In addition to the $7.4 million in funds, another $4.4 million in open items was at issue, with the state alleging that the Board of Education had not supplied the documentation to close out those projects.
Back and forth
From January until March, city and school board officials verbally jousted about who had the money. The city said it had never received the reimbursement for the school improvement projects. But the Board of Education supplied receipts for costs incurred by the district on what it said were cooperative endeavors with the city that it said it had written off.
Bayonne Corporation Counsel Jay Coffey countered that none of the transactions referred to by the board were even remotely related to the city.
Mayor intervenes
The relationship between the city and Board of Education became strained after Mayor James Davis spoke at a City Council meeting, announcing that he wrote to State Education Commissioner David Hespe on Jan. 22 asking him to investigate the matter.
Hespe visited Bayonne Board of Education headquarters on March 16. Both the city and board sent representatives to the meeting to brief Hespe. The May meetings were the follow up to the March meeting with Hespe.
Joseph Passantino may be reached at JoePass@hudsonreporter.com.To comment on this story online visit www.hudsonreporter.com.