001good evening i'd like to welcome everyone to our board meeting tonight if we could stand for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states to the new public for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice foreign mr i'll take the role if i may mr roman geno mrs abreu mr capano mrs fredo mr garcia is he online dr pantaliano mr raincourt mr russo mr shelley here it's terrible here mr roman jean i just have to read a quick statement if i may the new jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the rights of the public for the advanced notice of and to attend the meeting of public bodies that virginia business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with
002the provision of this act because i fought for the vet caused notice of this meeting to be published by having a date time in place thereof posted in the office of the borough clerk for the library for a wreck department the office of the board of ed and the office of school number three four five six in the high school on march 9th 2021 and notices look forward to reporters on the record march 9 2021 this is an official meeting regina so once again i would like to welcome everyone to our meeting tonight we're going to begin our meeting tonight i'd like to introduce mr stephen fogerty who is our board attorney from fogarty and harrah and mr ferdi fogarty is going to present um a school ethics uh report for us which is mandated
003each year by the state mr fogerty thank you mr army uh good evening everybody nice to be back with you and nice to be at a board meeting in person uh this is only the second one that i've had the privilege of attending in a year so it's uh good to be with you so i am going to present for you tonight um the requirements for the school ethics act and also the requirements for the code of ethics and so we'll begin by saying that with regard to your elected responsibilities as school board members there are two critical statutory enactments under title 18a which which are our education statutes that apply to you and the first is the school ethics act and the other is the code of ethics for school board members so the
004both of these are within the jurisdiction of the school ethics commission the school ethics commission is appointed by the governor they sit as a body and decide cases that come before them they also issue advisory opinions what's the difference a complaint which can be filed by anybody except the board of education so if the board of education felt that i as one of your fellow board members had committed an ethical violation you as a board could not file an ethics complaint against me it's not permitted any one of you could file an ethics complaint against me as an individual taxpayer or anybody in cliffside park arguably would have standing to file an ethics complaint but the board cannot bring an action against one of its own members if the alleged violation falls within the jurisdiction
005of the school ethics commission what falls within their jurisdiction prohibited acts under the school ethics act or a violation of the code of ethics for school board members and what's the difference if it's a prohibited act rather than a a violation of the code of ethics it's actually prosecuted by the attorney general and if it is an alleged violation of the code of ethics and i'm going to go through both of those with you tonight if it's an alleged violation of the code of ethics then it's prosecuted by the complainant the person that files the complaint so the difference obviously is a violation of the school ethics act prohibited acts far more serious than a violation of the code of ethics because the attorney general steps in and actually prosecutes that complaint um and the
006school ethics commission also gives advisory opinions so if you were to be concerned about whether you can vote on something whether you have a a financial interest whether you have a personal interest whether someone in your immediate family has a business interest and you're concerned about whether you should be able to deliberate over it whether you should be able to vote on it you have the ability to request what's called an advisory opinion the school ethics commission meets every month you get that request in by the 10th of that month the likelihood is you're going to get a decision by the next consecutive at the next consecutive monthly meeting they're really actually very good about issuing those advisory opinions and what do you say in the advisory opinion request exactly that i'm an elected member
007of the cliffside park board of education my uh my spouse has a financial interest in this company this company would like to do business with the cliffside park board of education can i participate can i vote on it they will tell you yes or no depending upon how direct or indirect those interests are so i'm gonna go through this pretty quickly obviously we i think we all know i mean you you you certainly know that the school ethics act is really intended uh to govern our conduct as uh as elected board members it's intended to make sure that we stay in our lane when it comes to the operation of our school district and you'll see that i'll be going through a number of cases with you tonight where board members perhaps step stepped outside
008of their lane and became involved in the day-to-day operations of the school district which resulted in there being a violation of the act so what acts are prohibited these are the the this is the conduct if you are alleged to have committed have committed a violation these are the prohibited acts where the attorney general becomes involved so if you have a business interest activities or transactions that are in substantial conflict with the proper discharge of your board member duties that would be a conflicting interest so what would that mean let's say for example that you had an interest in a private school let's say that there was a charter school in cliffside park let's say that those schools were competing for the same students that are going to cliffside park high school that would be
009a conflicting interest because you could not sit on the board and exercise your responsibilities as a board member and also exercise your responsibilities as a member of the board of that charter school or that private school that was that was competing for the same students taking advantage using your position to secure an unwarranted privilege advantage or employment for the board member family members or others when would that happen using your position to get a leg up for your child for example let's say that you have a son or daughter who's a who is an athlete in the school district and you use your position in order to move them up over junior varsity to varsity or in order to get them playing time on the ice if they're a hockey player that would be taking
010advantage using your position to get a leg up uh to get an unwarranted privilege or advantage and again that alleged violation would put you on the other side of a complaint that would be prosecuted by the attorney general's office and we're seeing far too many of those you know over the course of this pandemic for reasons i think that people are spending a lot of time at home they're spending a lot of time behind computers the number of complaints that have been filed with the school ethics commission with regard to allegations of wrongful conduct on the part of board members seems to have gone through the roof and that's because i think that we are spending a lot of time at home people are taking to social media they're expressing themselves of and about issues
011involving the school district they're getting themselves into difficulty as a result profiting from board service acting in your official capacity where you your immediate family or business organization which the board member has an interest has a direct or indirect financial involvement that would be expected to impair your judgment uh your objectivity your independence of judgment and so when would that happen if if in fact if in fact you acted in your official capacity and somebody in your family benefited financially as a result of that and if that were if that were to occur that too would be a prohibited act that would be a violation that would be prosecuted by the attorney general's office so conflicting employment you cannot undertake any employment or service whether compensated or not and i want you to focus on
012that compensated or not which might reasonably be expected to prejudice your independence of judgment in the exercise of official duties so what is the compensated or not volunteering volunteering so board members can volunteer provided that that volunteering that volunteerism doesn't become an excessive entanglement you're not supervising teachers you're not directing teachers you're not supervising students you're not being you're not a volunteer coach uh where you would exercise authority or supervision over students or direct uh uh employees in the exercise exercise of their responsibilities so you can raise money for a school play uh you can be invite you you can be involved in uh in uh in creating or building the sets god bless you you can do all of those things but you cannot select who's going to be in that play you cannot
013direct employees who are going to be supervising the the student actors who are in that play quick quote quote gifts or favors to listening or accepting any gift favor alone political contribution uh obviously that would be a prohibited act and the exception to that would be of course if you were running for the board and you were accepting contributions political contributions to your your campaign as long as you complied with our state's election laws that would be committed self-dealing using or allowing to be used your book your public office or any information are generally available to the public which you receive or require in the course of and by reason of your public office so what does that mean you find out that as a board member you become involved in discussions and there is
014going to be a construction project we are going to build a new school we're going to build an extension on a school uh you are going to install a new uh a new wiring you're going to enhance your wi-fi reception in your schools and you take that information and you turn that over to somebody else who's going to profit from that you turn that over to somebody that you that in your family that's with verizon or with a company that may be bidding on the project it's kind of like providing insider information uh to somebody uh so that they can profit from it and you directly or indirectly profit from it as well taking any action that's adverse to the board so representing an individual or somebody else coming before the board you have you
015have a neighbor who says uh you know i think that my son or daughter hasn't been treated fairly i want you to come to an iep meeting with me i want you to come to a meeting with me uh um you you are more articulate than me you're knowledgeable maybe you're an educator uh and i say to you gee can you come and represent me or represent my child before the board the answer to that is unconditionally and unequivocally you cannot do that you can represent your own children uh you can advocate for your own children you can do that as aggressively as you choose but even in representing your own children there comes a time when our supreme court says that you have crossed the line and committed a prohibited act and when does
016that happen when you are advocating for your own children and you are asking for some kind of money damages so you have come forward your child is educationally handicapped has an iep uh you can advocate for your child in order to get program and service changes but once you say to the board once you say to the administration of the board of education i want you to pay for private speech i want you to pay for a private school i want you to pay my attorney's fees uh because my attorney had to come to a meeting in order to advocate for my children once you cross that line and you're asking the board to reinvert to to pay you money damages that is a weapon you cannot be a board member and make that type
017of claim against the board so school ethics act very different here if there's a violation the complainant the person that files the complaint against you has to prosecute that complaint or hire their own attorney to prosecute that complaint and the school ethics act far more cases involving the school ethics act um i right now in in our office because these uh these cases are are covered under the board's respective insurance policies so board members have not board members if an ethics complaint is filed against you you are incredibly identified and held harmless and so it goes to the insurance carrier and then the insurance carrier refers the case to our office if uh we're on on the panel of approved attorneys and i would say right now i probably have maybe eight of these cases
018against board members in fairness our office represents 62 school districts eight cases doesn't seem like a lot but i will tell you this it's eight cases more than i've ever had in any other school year so insignificant benefits uh obviously if you are looking for reimbursement uh for aiden lua you know your children go to private school uh you file for aid in lieu of everybody else gets aided in lieu of that's an insignificant benefit you're not getting something that anybody else uh is similarly situated is not also a student inquiring for constituents that's not a quick pro quo so if you are representing uh the interests of uh of uh constituents in cliffside park um as long as you're not making any promises you're not getting anything uh in consideration for that you certainly
019can make an inquiry for information on behalf of the constituent and you can represent yourself in your immediate family again unless you are demanding money damages so let's talk about the code of ethics code of ethics very different uh these uh essentially are the guard rails for you what is your responsibility you've heard this said by others i have to repeat it your responsibility is to make sure the schools are well run not to run them and board members that have crossed the line and gotten involved in the day-to-day operations of the school district a board member who picks up the phone and calls the high school principal and says i want to talk to you about a problem that i see at the high school a board member that picks up the phone and
020calls a secretary to get information with regard to the budget a board member who says i don't believe what i'm hearing from the administration about a particular issue but i'm going to do my own independent investigation that is getting involved in the day-to-day operation of the school district that would be a violation of the code of ethics now you're promising to uphold the laws of the state of new jersey pretty simple and straightforward right what it means is that you're not going to ask your vote in a way that's arbitrary superintendent comes forward he recommends 10 people for tenure you say you know what i don't believe in tenure i'm philosophically opposed to it you can't vote no because you have an opinion that is contrary to what the laws of our state provide you'll
021make your decisions in terms of the educational welfare of children of course you're going to do that these provisions are not provisions where i see board members getting themselves into trouble but see this is where you see the overwhelming majority of cases coming out of the school ethics commission and the commissioner's office i will confine my void action to policy making planning and appraisal and i will help to frame policy and plans only after the board has consulted those who will be affected by them you are policy makers you establish governance you do not get involved should not get involved in the day-to-day operation of the district there it is no not intended for the schools you will see that they are well-run you have a superintendent a business administrator who are accountable to you
022you you you can certainly require that they be accountable to you but you cannot do a work around those individuals even if you believe you can do it better than they can you recognize that authority rests with the board that you make no personal promises take any private action they compromise the board what does that mean that means that us that we as individual board members we have no individual authority we don't have the authority to go out and unilaterally ask questions of members of the administration we don't have the authority to take an informal poll of how the teachers feel about something we don't have the ability to meet with the teachers union because we think that morale is bad and maybe that we can have a conversation that will that will improve it
023we have no individual authority our ability outside of this board meeting acting on on an agenda our ability to move out of here and have those conversations requires that you as a board by a majority of your whole board give me that authority you have to have a discussion you have to deliberate over it and you have to say you know what i think that steve you should go in and do an inspection of the high school with the business administrator and the superintendent because we really want to see whether or not there is any space that can be utilized in order so that in order that we can reopen our schools it would require the board to invest me without authority i couldn't take it on my own to walk up to to go
024into one of the schools and to make that inquiry when i go to the schools as a board member without you giving me the authority to do anything i am a visitor i am a visitor and i have to follow your school visitors policy i have no greater authority than anybody else walking into one of the schools unless you do give it to him if you give me that authority then i cannot retire you won't surrender your independent judgment special interest groups hardly ever see this as an alleged violation you will hold confidential all matters pertaining to the schools which is disclosed we needlessly either individuals or the schools i see this a lot this is information that comes to you in executive session you hear about a personnel matter uh you hear about a
025student disciplinary matter and then you go out of executive session and you disclose it perhaps intentionally perhaps unintentionally perhaps almost innocently it doesn't matter to the school ethics commission whether that disclosure is deliberate or inadvertent if it's inadvertent it goes to the penalty it doesn't go to the violation so what you see in all of these ethics opinions is where you fall on your sword you say i made a mistake i screwed up i'm sorry they say okay we accept that so we're not going to suspend you from the board but we're nevertheless going to find that you violated the code of ethics for school board members we're going to public publicly admonish you there's going to be a published decision keep in mind that every one of these complaints that that gets adjudicated becomes
026a public decision so that if you file a complaint against me and i have inadvertently disclosed confidential information and i apologize for it and i'm remorseful they say okay you're not going to be suspended but you're going to be found to be in violation and now you google me the first thing that pops up violation of the school ethics act and these never go away even if you're found not to have violated the school ethics act they don't go away i take great exception to that i voice my opinion about it uh suffice it to say that nothing has changed with regard to those decisions you'll vote to appoint the best qualified personnel available after consideration by the superintendent do you have to rubber stamp those recommendations no do you have to vote yes no
027you have the right to vote no you have the right to send the superintendent back to the world to come back with another candidate but what you don't have the ability to do is that you will work around them you don't have the ability to say you know what we want to go and review the resumes we want to see who else was out there and then come probably with your own recommendation you don't have the ability to do that you will support and protect school personnel in the proper performance of their duties pretty simple and straightforward what it needs is we as board members we lose we lose some first amendment rights when we get elected to the board you know before you're elected to the board you can pretty much go out and
028express your opinion and close up you can express your opinion about me and you can say something about me that's negative if it's an opinion you do have a good community i can't even sue you for defamation but as a board member if you go out and say something negative about me and i'm an administrator or i'm a teacher in your school district that would be a violation of the code of evidence because you are not supporting me and in the performance of my duties so where do you do that if you've got a concern about me there's something that you've heard about that you are concerned that i'm not doing my job or that i have uh i've done something unprofessional or that i have i have done something out of your community that
029you are concerned about then when you deal with that actually you advice notice to me the superintendent you have an executive discussion about that and then if if ultimately those concerns are substantiated then you have the superintendent take the appropriate action you'll refer all complaints to the superintendent um you won't take any action at a public meeting and that means very simply that if um a 100 people come out here and they are demanding that you as a board do something that that they're agreeing and they make the case and you think you know what they're right we should do something you cannot take public action until you refer to the superintendent for an appropriate resolution if the superintendent fails to respond uh if the superintendent can't resolve it or fails to respond then you
030can pick it up as a board so what are the key laws always refer the complaints to the superintendent code of ethics says you have to do that no exceptions no matter where you hear it it goes back to uh mr romanino for a resolution brain policy has been planned you have to be consulted with those affected by them otherwise that would be a violation of a code of evidence avoid giving orders to staff members and you avoid giving those orders whether you are a board member you're volunteering now there's a case where a board member walks into a school and uh there's going to be a meeting let's say this was the high school and and and not the uh the board and municipal building you walk into the high school uh you're not
031happy with the condition of the hallways you go into the uh into the restroom and you're not happy with those facilities and you come out and the buildings and ground supervisor is there or custodian is there and you say you know what you need to go and clean this place up uh you need to make sure that these hallways are in better shape that would be a violation of the code of ethics but you know what well-meaning lofty uh trying to improve the condition of the school certainly not looking to get yourself into this kind of difficulty nevertheless it can happen because you don't know who's going to file that complaint against you we've ran from refrain from referring our people for employment to the superintendent with a condition that they'd be employed it doesn't
032prevent you from sending a resume it doesn't prevent you from giving a a referral but does prevent you from using your position to get that person a job you have an issue with board policies procedures or curriculum regardless of the superintendent now i want to go over some cases from this past year that will highlight those prohibited acts and we'll also highlight the code of ethics for school building so this is the case coming to us at a madison school district and here we have a teacher who claims that the board president used her position to gain unwarranted advantages use her position to protect the preferential treatment for her children uh try to request an individual curricula uh try uh to get uh to try to get her child and enhance a program with a
033gifted and talented uh program in the district and that was the basis for the complaint how did this arise this part of this rise when this teacher was recommended for non-renewal superintendent recommends that this teacher tells his teacher that that he's not going to be renewed for the following school year uh teacher then claims that the reason for that non-renewal was retribution and retaliation because he wouldn't play ball with the board president ultimately he was not renewed he files this efforts complaint ultimately the school ethics commission found that these division backs to find that this was a violation but i want you to understand the context in which that arises so if in fact you are advocating for your children you want to make very certain that during that advocacy you never talk about the
034fact that you're a board member you never indicate that you as a board member uh uh have recourse uh if uh the requests that you're making are not granted you just want to make sure that you protect yourself in that process because you never know whether or not you're gonna have a disgruntled employee like this teacher who didn't get nothing was non-renewed probably for legitimate reasons um and the other thing is that with regard to the non-renewal this is a board president that did and was required to abstain from the deliberations on that teacher's contract once the recommendation was made for nomination this case coming out of randolph uh the vice president of the board made a speech during the fortune of the board meeting board member comments you know that you have the opportunity
035as board members during a portion of the meeting to express your comments maybe about things that were said by the public maybe about a presentation that was made by the administration suffice it to say you make that make those comments during the public portion of the meeting this board member land-based and parents who had formed an advocacy and were critical of the board's actions and the complainant said that the board member unfairly attacked the advocacy group and accused the group of uh threatening her and lying to influence an elected official the bottom line here is that what the school ethics commission said was that this board members before because she made those statements at a board meeting did that with impunity cloaked with the uh uh cl cloaked with the uh the protection that you
036have as elected public officials during a dually convened board meeting the result might have been different if it hadn't been a board meeting but but the takeaway here is that when you make statements of and about uh of it other than about people that members of the public that may come may come and speak to you when you make statements of and about uh uh presentations that may be made by the superintendent or the administration you want to do it here because if you do it here then you are cloaked with that qualified immunity the other thing that the ethics commission said here is that you know what we're not disability police you know we're not going to find a violation of the code of ethics of school for school board members because someone has
037been uncivil or inappropriate and let me just let me just digress for a moment because what does that mean that means that they don't have jurisdiction over that if you act badly if you uh your conduct is rude if uh your conduct is vituperative if something comes out from the public and you don't like what they say and and you say something to them that they find to be embarrassing or inappropriate doesn't make it any less offensive but the school ethics commission doesn't have jurisdiction over that who has jurisdiction over that you do so you as a board member you you as a board could could um publicly censure me you could pass a resolution saying that you didn't like my conduct that my conduct violated your rules of civility because you have jurisdiction over
038what each of you do and say at a board meeting but the school ethics commission will not exercise jurisdiction mount lakes so here's a board member that um makes uh the allegation has made several reactors and discriminatory statements about students at the lake drive school for the deaf so the mount lake school district has within its school district uh a school which is called the lakeside the lake drive school and is the school for hearing impaired children this board member during a public board meeting indicated that of all the hiv cases that they were looking at that the majority of those cases involved children that attended the hearing impaired school and you can imagine that the parents of the children who were hearing impaired when they heard that were not happy about it uh and
039this was one of those parents and so what the school ethics commission said was you know what we don't like what he said uh we're not we're certainly not going to condone like he said what he said was offensive and inappropriate but not a violation of the code of ethics for school board members monroe township here's a case where a board member is at a baseball name for her child there's a there's a parent of another child who is very enthusiastic he's loud he's annoying she obviously doesn't like his conduct conduct doesn't go so far as to include uh of being uh using profanity uh or uh uh being uh or or being uh using using appropriate language but suffice it to say he's loud and disruptive she has a board members on the policy
040committee she goes back to the policy committee and she says you know what we ought to have a policy that deals with parents that deals with the conduct of spectators at these athletic events because it's getting out of hand they work on the policy this parent thinks that that policy was really drafted and developed in in order to gag him and so he filed an ethics complaint against the board member and the school ethics commission said no not a violation because the board member was fulfilling her responsibilities as a member of a standing committee on the board and while she may have had mixed motives what she was doing she was doing as part of her elected responsibilities that is the takeaway here if you are acting as part of your official duties at a
041board meeting as part of a as a member of a committee or if you are if you are acting with the authority that the board has given you and delegated to you then in all likelihood whatever the allegations are going to conduct is uh you are going to be insulated from a finally that you violated before the audience is greenwich so here a board member inadvertently copied a parent in the district on a confidential email so what happens is you've got a teacher in the district who's also a parent they live in the community obviously if their children go to school there also a teacher in the school district uh that uh a teacher comes forward she's got a complaint about the way that her child was treated she comes before the board for a
042hearing the board hears the case the board makes a decision and then one of the board members issues uh an email he's not real happy with the way that the board uh uh with how the board decided the case he's not happy with the discussions that took place in executive session he sends a communication to the board president expressing his opinion and he hits reply all and guess who gets it the teacher the parent it is that reply all right we've all seen that commercial on tv where they where they they remind you of all the things that are wide-eyed and you wish you could take them back reply all is one of those things or using those drop downs you need to be careful of that as board members innocent unintended doesn't matter violation
043it is a violation of this of the code of ethics for school board members um the penalty obviously is is going to be mitigated by the fact that this was unintentional you can see him determining the penalty of reprimand the sec said all members of the board of education must be mindful of who's receiving their emails the inclusion of any member of the public on the same email as the board as the potential not only to violate the code of ethics it has the right it has the potential to violate the open public meetings act why the open public meetings act once you and i start communicating with each other and once there are five of us on that communication that is that is a forum it is a violation of the open public meetings
044act and why does that become a problem with this reply all because even though you didn't intend it if it goes to all nine of you that's a violation of the open public meetings act you've got to make sure that when you're sending emails that you do not send them to a number to board members that are constantly a foreign based out of bloomingdale acting superintendent files a complaint here uh against a a board member and basically the complaint is that the board member is not supporting him in the performance of his duties and why is he not supporting him the performance of the series because the board members at a public board meeting and he's hammering that super that acting superintendent about the budget hammering him i want answers to my questions how are
045we going to afford this uh where are we going to get the money for this line item how is this going to be accomplished and you know what the superintendent is ill-prepared to answer those questions however what the school ethics commission said is that the board member didn't do that in public did it at a board meeting legitimate questions to be asked about the budget and so found that it was not only not only found that there was no violation of the school letters but found that the acting superintendent uh that brought that complaint that he should have known about it and admonished the acting superintendent and find him a hundred bucks on top of it for filing a frivolous complaint again the takeaway it was done at a board meeting this curione pace done
046at a board meeting not done at a board meeting and look what happened here on social media this initially was a six-month suspension from the door removed him for six months and why he used his blog to relentlessly attack a preschool teacher who was employed by the district was a member of the union he was a member of the union's negotiations team and you can see what he did and close to the inaccurate information uh referenced her in a negative manner questioned her honesty referred to as debbie downer uh claim she didn't put children first called her ingredient i'll believe the explication but you see it there called her bully a union volley claims she had an irrational obsession with liberal politicians that she was all about attention seeking and feeling irrelevant all of this
047is on social media and then depicted a picture of the street where she lived on social media so while the school ethics commission tells us that they are not disability police you can only push them so far and so here what did they find to be the violation one that that he that this board member was not supporting an employee of the school district who is publishing inaccurate information uh about her and not only that was taking action that had the potential to prejudice the war how did this action have how did this conduct have the potential to board clearly this individual could bring a lawsuit against the board bring a lawsuit against the board because of the conduct of that board member so that has the potential to prejudice the war south orange maple
048wood so the reason i find is that obviously the concept is inappropriate this is a board member that got pulled over by law enforcement uh she's pulled over in a traffic stop uh and uh um she attempts to to leverage her position on the board to avoid the issue of summons threatens the police officer uh i'm not sure how uh one can believe that their position on the board of education could actually be used to leverage a police officer or not issuing a summons uh for uh uh for a traffic violation or for suspected uh for being under the influence but in any event the point is here the takeaway is here that she attempted this was all this was this was all this was all on a body cam so all of it was
049recorded uh and the point is here that she attempted to use her position to gain an unwarranted advantage so regardless of the facts you cannot use your position say i'm a member of the cliffside board of education and if you don't do this or that or there isn't this consideration i'm going to go back to the board and there can be consequences for you that will get you into trouble so hocus so this is about self-reporting and what does that mean you write a letter to the editor you uh um uh you allow yourself to be interviewed by local media and you express an opinion oven about the board's business unless the board has authorized you to speak for them you have an obligation to say uh i am stephen hogany i am a member
050of the cliffside park association and what i'm about to say is my own personal opinion i haven't been authorized by the board to do it you have an obligation to self-report that so the question that arose karen will is they were having a special bond referendum they were going out to the voters to raise money in order to put a stem lab into their elementary school and this board member was obviously supporting that referendum and she put a sign up on her lawn she went on social media she encouraged people uh to vote for the referendum and the question was did you have an obligation on that one song to say i'm a member of the jojoca board of education and the board hasn't authorized me to support the referendum so this was a commission
051said that's ridiculous that is absolutely ridiculous she does not have to self-identify more importantly what the school ethics commission made clear here is that as board members that we uh do not violate the school ethics act by going out and supporting the school budget you know when you go out and uh this april when the voters come forward and vote on the budget now the question the question that's often asked of me in this case answers that question do you have the ability as board members to say we hope you'll support our budget absolutely you have that ability now you don't have to say go out and vote and and end your sentence there you have the ability to say this is a good budget it's solid it supports our educational programs and we hope
052that you will support it when do you cross the line not when you express an opinion in support of that budget you would cross the line if we were using taxpayer money to advocate for the passage of that budget if you were saying to the administration create and send out flyers in support of the budget that would be a violation in this case posting the sign giving out the signs going on social media saying that you liked the uh the other comments was not a violation so student disciplinary matter comes before you and the superintendent is recommending a suspension to the school of more than 10 days the family comes before you they're represented by an attorney to have a hearing before the board you make a decision and in this case this board member
053from west windsor plainsboro forwards an email message to a member of his family and says oh by the way i just got out of a disciplinary hearing involving steve fogerty and the board put him out of school for 10 days and then a member of my family disseminates that email everybody the website you're in big trouble if that happens and why are you in big trouble not only because you have violated the confidentiality of an executive session you have probably also violated federal law under profa the individual privacy rights of that student you've probably violated state law as well as any number of other policies so you've also prejudiced the board because there is the potential here for a lawsuit because of invasion of privacy so board member violated the act by attending an emergency
054union meeting about the superintendent without approval of the board or the board attorney i think i got that wrong i don't have any authority for sure uh but uh it has the potential to undermine the authority of the superintendent and her ability to manage the day-to-day operation so what happens here the union's unhappy with me as your superintendent and they're sending emails to the board members uh they're sending uh they're they're putting something in the local newspaper maybe they want to take no confidence i've done something that they feel agreed by and so uh board the board president thinks you know what let me meet with the union leadership let me see if i can smooth things over and does that without the authority of the board that is in violation of the code of
055efforts it doesn't matter how long they need it so here uh a board member again during a public board meeting responded probably inappropriately to a member of the public with regard to criticisms that um the member of the public was making uh ultimately they got into an exchange exchange um they were rude comments uh no question but it didn't constitute a violation of the act again because it was said at a board meeting if anything was going to happen here would have it would have to be action taken by the willing willing board of education those are the cases from this year so again i'm going to leave you with what i think is the most important takeaway here and that is that as board members you must stay in your lane you must stay
056in your lane with regard to your policy making and your governments and ensure that you stay out of the day-to-day operations of the schools and before you pick up that phone or or or send that email to an administrator or an employee of the school district unless it is about your child and you are acting as a parent or as a guardian then you should think about that and not make that call and not send that email without talking to the superintendent first and you are finished with me for the evening so thank you any questions for mr publishers dr peggliano so the answer is that you have the right to express expression but you as a board member if you're going to express that without opinion um you should be doing it at a
057board meeting ideally not in public you should be having that discussion with an executive essential if you're out expressing an opinion in public about the superintendent i i think you run the risk depending upon the context in which you express that opinion and depending upon depending upon how um depending upon what that opinion is i think you can run the risk of a violation of the photographs and again what i want to emphasize here is that when you become a board member you you your first amendment rights um are abrogated you don't have the same right as a board member as you and i would have as a private citizen because you have the right to express an opinion even if it's if as long as it's not reckless as as long as that it's
058not made knowing it's false right i mean you couldn't express an opinion about me uh that was made with reckless disregard for its truth and falsity can you accuse me of a pride couldn't accuse me of a child abuse or being beating my spouse that would be actionable but when you ask me if you can express an opinion about the superintendent the answer the answer is yes you can express an opinion about the superintendent but if that expression of opinion undermines the superintendent they'll apprise the superintendent i think you're in trouble and if you've got contrary um advice about that i would respectfully ask you to follow my advice yes related matters we can say something forward school related business now the only exception to that would be if you went to the mayor council
059meeting and you wanted to express an opinion about something that they were going to do you're a board member and so you would have to say before you got up and made that statement i'm here speaking as as a resident of possible i'm not expressing an opinion on behalf of the cliffside park education that's the only difference but in answer to your question those lanes do not apply to you when you're talking about issues of significant public importance that do not involve us you want to talk about a zoning issue if you want to talk about uh about a land development or housing development uh if you want to talk about a rezoning of the downtown you're free to do all of that yes so you would have a direct financial interest and i would
060venture the opinion is simply identifying all sources of income or revenue that's why you're doing that and where it is derived from and also i guess to identify whether there are any potential conflicts so i don't think the disclosure gets you off the heart i think that if you are deriving a direct financial benefit then i think that that that would be potentially a problem and in your in that situation and i don't even know if that's your situation but but in that situation what i would do is request an advisory opinion i would put all those facts in front of the school ethics commission and i would say give me an advisory opinion as to whether this is substantial enough uh a direct enough interest that that it um would be a prohibited act
061i would ask that question but my my thinking is that would be a problem any other questions i think you're well thank you very much my pleasure appreciate it thank you thank you steve thank you take care steve thanks again okay so the next uh part of our meeting tonight is the presentation of our budget for the next coming school year i'm going to turn it over to mr alfano our business administrator well thank you mr roman gina for giving me a few minutes first and foremost i'd like to thank our board our staff our municipality and of course our taxpayers and supporting our budget and all our initiatives throughout the year um i asked respectfully uh and hopefully that our taxpayers will uh vote yes to the budget vote on april 20th and now
062i'll take a few minutes to just go over the essentials of our 2122 cliffside park budget the total budget is approximately 59 million dollars in total about 37 million will be our tax levy that obviously impacts the taxpayer we did some formulaic measurements just to give the taxpayer an understanding of the potential tax impact of this budget and on a home of approximately 365 thousand dollars in assessed value it'll probably cost our tax payer in the range of 77 per annum which is about six dollars and 42 cents per month given that we are going to engage in what we call our other capital projects which is driven by some of the surplus we have accumulated over the past year are we going to engage in a project our major project this coming summer of
063a gym upgrade uh gymnasium upgrade which will include replacing of our floor new windows and hvac and the potential after we get that formal bid which will be coming forth in april 7th will be the bid opening we can potentially do some other projects and potential replacement of floors and replacement of remodeling of our some of our restrooms and potential to do a another public address system installation at our school number four at least i go quickly i like to go over some of the key line items that drive our budget and some of the trend analytics over the last three years again one of the major line items we have is obviously uh includes our regular special education instruction that line item has increased approximately three percent year over year and that's kind of
064in line with our contractual output over the next three years our employee benefits we've got a benefit of those benefits which is essentially our medical our prescription dental and vision we actually went down year over year and that's mainly driven by that our medical is for the first half of this year is going to go down about four or five percent we got some relief and also the introduction of a new plan called the educated health plan which is a lower cost plan but not only helped our staff but also helped our bottom line here as a budget to our taxpayers our operations of our plant which essentially maintaining our buildings and grounds pretty much been flat year over year our administrative salaries which is driven by technology and principle and principles again is up
065to approximately three percent year over year our transportation costs of course of bus drivers and bus aides are pretty much flat year-over-year which is a good thing because our revenues continue to increase i'll go through that quickly when we get to the revenues our instructional support which is essentially driven by our child study team speech otp has gone up year over year that's always a challenge that's one of the line items that challenges us each and every year goes up at a greater rate than the cost of inflation uh we have no debt service which is good news we paid that off in july 2019 and our grants state and federal grants are pretty much flat uh year over year i'll quickly go through our revenues again we talked about our total uh our local
066tax levy which is approximately uh 37 million dollars we talked about the increase was two percent which is our allowable cap year over year we talked about the average home assessed value of 365 000 and the impact to the taxpayer approximately 77 dollars per annum 6.42 per month our miscellaneous income which is really driven by our transportation as i alluded to before we're fortunate enough that we have approximately about 23 buses approximately 23 drivers and 38 bus aides that generate revenue by that i mean not only do we transport over 300 of our special needs students throughout the county but we also piggyback students from other districts specifically fairview fort lee and palisades park so we generate revenues from those districts based on we're already taking our own students to the uh different locations in
067bergen county for our special needs population one of our bigger line items is our tuition line item that we receive from fairview uh that's been flat year over year it runs around nine million dollars 500 plus fairview students an average student we get about 14 500 per student and then another line item that helps us offset our appropriations our expenses year over year is approximately a million dollars and then we get that from our surplus and essentially we split our surplus two ways we get a dollars worth of surplus we split it between helping our helping offset our future appropriation future expenses in our upcoming budget year and also applying it to what we call our capital projects boilers hvac projects and again over the last seven eight years we've appropriated approximately 16 million dollars
068for those type of projects and this upcoming school year in the summer we a major project i alluded to previously is the high school gym upgrade another clean line item that helped us this coming year was that we received additional received additional state aid from the state incrementally it was up about seven and a half eight percent year over year which is significantly higher than what we usually see great help in balancing our our budget specifically around pre-school education aid which obviously is a line item that we struggle with and our challenge with year over year that goes up uh greater than the cost of inflation so net net our total budget approximately 59 million dollars nearly 37 million of that will be on the tax levy and again i asked respectfully that uh our
069our taxpayers uh vote yes to the budget on april 20th and again i wanted to thank obviously our taxpayers our board our staff and our municipality for all their support that's pretty much it mr romagino okay before we continue any questions uh from the board on the staff balance presentation dr patriano that's the expectation the preliminary timeline we had a pre-bid meeting today and we had about 12 to 14 contractors which is always good news uh obviously uh the more contractors you have the potential for the bid to come in where you expect it or lower competition breeds you know hopefully good news in regard to the bid opening the bid opening is on april 7th at 11 a.m it'll happen here hopefully we get those same 12 or 14 contract if they fill out
070all the appropriate paperwork then we take the lowest three bids and we send them to attorney review and then we will request from the board to award the lowest bid based on the attorney review and our architect and engineer reveal once that hopefully comes in within the expectation in regard to what we budgeted um in may we will hopefully uh start some preliminary work on the on the gym upgrade and then uh you know the timeline substantial completion timeline has us you know at the end of august obviously a lot of moving parts dr pantaliano but the expectation and the hope is that we can get it all done by the end of august uh we will have on we have initial pre-construction meeting we'll have ongoing status meetings that we will bring the board
071up to speed on hopefully there's no hiccups change orders stuff like that but it's a it's a rigorous project that uh will be a challenging you know 12 to 14 week uh timeline the hope is that we can get it awarded and there's no snap fools in the bid opening and then we can get it awarded in april and we can start some preliminary work in may which will give us a jump start on the uh on the timeline fingers crossed fingers crossed correct that's correct so the expectation mr katana was that if the bid opening goes well and we take it to attorney review and the lowest bid is awarded we'll we'll ask the board to award that bid sooner rather than later again once we get that bit awarded it initiates and engages
072ordering materials you alluded to it gets the timeline going earlier and if we can get the timeline started in may that gives us a fighting chance to get what we need to get done uh prior to september 1. okay anyone else any questions to mr alfano on the budget i just want to point out to the community members that might be um watching the stream tonight uh there is a newsletter that's posted to our website uh was posted today and along with that uh newsletter which explains uh some of the things that we've been able to do in the past as a result of the community supporting the budget and what we're looking to do uh do moving forward uh are outlined in the in this newsletter so if you get a chance please read
073it also there's a copy of a user-friendly budget for the public to review and that's also posted to our website so both are accessible to our public and feel free to visit our our website to look at those particular documents documents uh just a couple of items before we look at the consent agenda um i just want to do a quick update on our sports we are running right now volleyball uh wrestling indoor track everything seems to be going fairly well we're looking forward to uh baseball softball and outdoor track um i believe those start on or about april first maybe a couple days later than that so um hoping that um everyone stays healthy we're able to move forward and uh fulfill our obligation of uh giving our students the opportunity to participate in
074all of these sports uh throughout the rest of the school year i do want to make mention that our high school guidance department on march 18th last week we had a very successful uh college information night it was done virtually i want to thank our supervisor of guidance mrs casano for running that program for us just to mention also i mentioned this last meeting we are going to are getting ready to register uh pre-k students for this coming september the pre-k registration dates are april 27th and april 29th if a parent is interested in registering their child who will be four by october first they can contact school number five for registration materials we will also be registering new students in kindergarten for september so if you're currently in our pre-k program we do not
075have to register for september if you are new to the district then registration for kindergarten is going to take place uh after our spring break april 13th through the 16th uh parents who are interested can visit our website for more information but you can also call school number four for information on kindergarten registration there are packets that have to be filled out prior to uh parents coming in uh as a designated time also the opportunity to make appointments so those two um events are coming up later on in april i do want to congratulate our middle school students uh they do a great job with our newsletter which is called the uh perspective and it's posted to our website as is our high school newsletter um school newspaper i should say each month so as
076a community member as a parent uh if you visit our website there is a lot of information on our website regarding a lot of activities that our students take part in i am happy to report that our vaccination program within the district giving staff members the opportunity to be vaccinated is going very very well as vaccinations become more readily available which they are i've seen that more staff members across the board bus drivers bus aides teacher aides teachers are getting the opportunity to get vaccinated so hopefully by may maybe the beginning of june uh we'll see that the majority of our staff who want to be vaccinated have the opportunity to do so i did mention our budget newsletter i also want to make mention uh in your folder tonight um i gave you a
077copy of a draft budget you know that i mentioned our last a meeting that uh footside park is receiving as other districts are receiving ess er2 funding cliffside park is going to receive somewhere in the vicinity of two million dollars that can that has to be used for specific areas for example uh upgrading ventilation systems uh addressing learning loss of students counseling for students so on and so forth what i've done is i've shared this information with our staff i've received some feedback from our administration feedback from staff members um i'm welcoming input from our board this is only a draft budget this is not a final budget i'm giving you this budget to look over so that you can look at the items that mr alfano and i have kind of put down in
078terms of a draft budget to see where we can spend this money where it could benefit our students the most and where it can benefit the district the most across the board on at our april 21st april 21st work session um we will spend a little bit more time discussing this budget but in the meantime if you have questions if you have suggestions please email me call me and i can say to you uh that suggestion is great but it doesn't adhere to the guidelines or i could say you know what we never thought about that we're gonna try to incorporate that into the budget as an example i have budgeted 600 000 for summer school over the next three summers that would allow us to expand our summer school program from pre-k to 12
079that not not only are we offering um courses let's say to middle school students who may fail a class but we're offering remediation programs to students who need remediation uh we're offering programs by teacher recommendation and parent recommendation to students who may have had learning loss due to covet so we're going to be giving many more students the opportunity to attend our four-week summer program esl students special education students across the board and um that budget is such to allow for the hiring of staff providing services but that's just one example and again this is these are just draft items so i did give you a copy if you have time you can look that over and we will talk more about that at a later date just a reminder uh to do your self-evaluation
080the board self-evaluation you can go to the new jersey school board's website log in and take that self-evaluation and then we get the results of that that will be shared with the board if you have any questions about logging in where the site is uh just contact me and i will um i'll help you along with that okay at this time i'd like to um see if there are any committee reports okay i know last meeting we did have a couple of them so i'm going to move on from there any questions at this point from the board before i look at the consent agenda about anything dr pangliano i love it is right uh yes uh we are looking at the elementary schedule uh we do have a couple of concerns one is if
081we extend the day for elementary uh the concern is feeding students uh how we would prob possibly provide lunch for them or do we have to provide lunch maybe we can provide a snack and then they can eat when they go home would increase class size which is something that we're determining how big a class may be based on how many students are hybrid right now so those are things that we're looking at so yes we have expanded middle school we have expanded high school in the sense that we've offered students the opportunity to come back for five days um but an elementary has been a little bit more of a challenge because of of lunch but we now that the governor not the governor not the cdc has recommended three fee it probably will
082allow us to put more students safely in class um luckily our problem has not been the schools uh i think that if you look at how many covert cases and this probably applies to many many districts it's not really transmission between two students in class it's primarily coming from the home uh so that's something we are looking at one of the things i am concerned about that we are also uh looking at is parents are on a schedule right now and i want to make sure that if we go to a different schedule it doesn't impact child care for some parents who may have made plans based on what's going on now so it is something we're looking at and hopefully by the next board meeting i'll be able to share more information okay no
083problem anyone else i don't think there are any questions from the public at this time so i'm just going to go to the consent agenda um i'll run through it pretty quickly uh on page two uh we have a high school esl teacher uh emma brooks who's asking for a leave of absence uh effective unpaid leave of absence effective february 26 through april 12th due to child care concerns uh anna aceta also is asking for an unpaid leave of absence uh due to travel arrangements effective march 1st and april 2nd and then we begin our uh spring break third resolution um accepting the retirement of brenda maldonado uh brenda has been a spanish teacher with us at the high school middle school she's been the world language teacher with us in the elementary school and
084she submitted her paperwork effective july 1st uh brenda has been on leave since the end of i believe it's october skipping down to a resolution of elizabeth layton who's a title one teacher at school number three has been on her unpaid leave of absence due to child care and she will be returning effective april 12 uh 2021 after the break uh tracy rembecki who's also been on a paid leave um throughout this year is returning uh effective may 24th and then um at this point we're not sure where tracy will be reassigned but she will be coming back to the district effective may 24th uh donna murtagh secretary of school six have requested an unpaid leave from march 18 through march uh if i 26th back up to page three uh resolution for a medical
085leave from ella to fanner who's a high school social studies teacher uh we'll be taking a medical leave uh honor about may 13th and her anticipated date of return is december 15th uh i'm sorry january 3rd 2022 uh hunley is due to our maternity leave uh krystal merkovic also a teacher at school number six uh is requesting a medical leave for maternity purposes uh crystal will be uh on leave from september first she will be returning uh on or about september 1st 2022. so crystal is requesting the leave for all of the next school year tomorrow werner is a school psychologist with us uh we're putting her officially at m.a step 30 step one she received her certification yesterday from the state she's been working with us as a permanent sub while the state processed
086her certification which she officially received yesterday so we're putting uh tamara on guard uh skip over to uh we're approving tonight the official contract between cliffside park and ridgefield for our co-op uh for football it's a two-year program i know that the richfield board of education has already approved it and we'll approve it tonight and then dr pimpliano we'll have um our board president sign it and we'll be uh officially engaged with richfield for this co-op program and that's all i have at this time i know mr alfano anything in addition to finance that you spoke about just the last page of the agenda is the formal budget resolution any questions uh from the board on the consent agenda okay motion to accept uh that was uh mr russo and miss tarabaka okay okay i'd
087like to take a vote if i may this is a brew mr capano mrs freda mr garcia if he's online uh dr pantaliano yeah mr russo yeah mr shelley pam is the target okay so move mr roman okay just a reminder that um on april 20th once again we'll be voting for the school budget the polls are open from 2 to 8 p.m and as i do each year i encourage our community to come out and support our budget it's all about our students and what we can provide to them so mr charlie in person this year yes voting will be 2-8 april 20th in person our next official board meeting is the week after that on april 28th motion to adjourn mr caprano and that was mr shelley can i ask the board members
088would they mind just dropping off those ethics acknowledgement forms