The war of words continues in the ongoing battle between city and Board of Education officials
about millions of dollars the administration says the board owes it for completed school projects.
The figure is at least $7.4 million, if you count the money the administration of Mayor James Davis says has been reimbursed to the board by the state School Development Authority. The figure could be as much as $11.8 if the $4.4 million in open projects is added in.
In a new development, Business Administrator Leo Smith and the board Finance Committee sent a second letter to the Bayonne Community News on Feb. 13 responding to statements made by Corporation Counsel Jay Coffey in the Feb. 11 issue. In that story, Coffey gave his rebuttal to assertions made in the committee’s Feb. 4 letter, including that the city owes the board money, coming up with a $12.2 million figure for payments the board says were made and debt written off by the board.
In the new letter, the Finance Committee said that as assistant city attorney and/or law director from 1990 to 2009, Coffey should have been aware of the instances where the board said it repaid some of the money to the city, or wrote off debt the board says the city owed it.
Coffey says he was aware of the transactions the Board of Education Finance Committee mentions in its letter, but that they are not pertinent to the issue being discussed and that they have nothing to do with the city of Bayonne.
In the letter, the committee also questions what the city did with a $6 million payment the board made to it in 2011.
“Just so that Mr. Smith has a complete understanding of what the city’s finance director did with that money, he used it to pay down previous school debt, just like he was supposed to,” Coffey responded.
The Board of Education also said it has provided the correct paperwork and receipts for all the projects Coffey questioned. But Coffey maintains the documentation provided by the board does not make the board’s case.
“More telling than the documents and receipts provided to the Bayonne Community News are the documents not provided: resolutions, memoranda of agreement, memoranda of understanding, ordinances, meeting minutes, and other documents that public entities, such as the Bayonne Board of Education, would normally use to capture the details evidencing that it is owed $11 million by another public entity,” Coffey said.
“If Mr. Coffey would like to discuss the ongoing issues between the city of Bayonne and the Bayonne Board of Education, we remain steadfast in our resolve to serve the students, staff, and taxpayers of the city of Bayonne,” the letter continued.
That day of reckoning may come sooner than later; a meeting on the issue has been scheduled.
Upcoming meeting
New Jersey Department of Education Commissioner David Hespe will visit Bayonne to meet with city and Board of Education officials on Monday, March 16 to discuss the issue.
Both sides say they hope it can be resolved at that time. Smith said the meeting with Hespe is the last response the board will make on the issue.
Board of Education President William Lawson has said that the board is ready and willing to open its books for an audit. Bayonne Business Administrator Joseph DeMarco said he wishes for that also.
“Let’s open the books and see what happened,” DeMarco said. “As Cuba Gooding [Jr.] said to Tom Cruise [in “Jerry Maguire”], ‘Show me the money.’”
Joseph Passantino may be reached at JoePass@hudsonreporter.com.To comment on this story online visit www.hudsonreporter.com.