{"id":8488,"date":"2024-12-13T16:00:31","date_gmt":"2024-12-13T21:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/localtalkweekly.com\/?p=8488"},"modified":"2024-12-13T16:00:34","modified_gmt":"2024-12-13T21:00:34","slug":"state-tells-newark-public-schools-nice-try","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/localtalkweekly.com\/index.php\/2024\/12\/13\/state-tells-newark-public-schools-nice-try\/","title":{"rendered":"State Tells Newark Public Schools: “Nice Try.”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

BY WALTER ELLIOTT<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

NEWARK<\/strong> – The June 1 Newark Public Schools “Superintendent’s Staff Fun Day,” held at a Somerset County retreat, has proven costly – by a rounded down $33,000 in the eyes of the New Jersey Department of Education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NPS officials revealed at the Board of Education’s Nov. 26 meeting that its Central Office received a $33,000 invoice based on an NJDOE Office of Fiscal Accountability and Compliance October to Superintendent of Schools Roger Leon. The to-be-refunded $33,000 resolution was authorized by the school board that Tuesday night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leon had scheduled a “Fun Day” at Warren, NJ’s Forest Lodge. An estimated 275 adults and 140 children of staff members had participated in relay races, rock wall climbing, egg tosses, limbo dancing, a corn hole toss, operating a claw machine, a hula hoop contest and similar activity at the wedding venue that Saturday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The then-NPS school board, in approving the Fun Day, described its goal as “communicating a shared vision and plan for developing, supporting and sustaining a positive culture and climate in all classrooms, schools and departments across the district.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

OFAC investigators, in October, reported back to Leon that the Fun Day amounted to a “Nice Try” but had failed to cut the agency’s educational and developmental mustard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The activities held during Fun Day were largely recreational and focused on leisure, competition and amusement,” said OFAC’s report. “The event lacked an educational or professional development component and did not demonstrate a clear connection to the district’s strategic objectives or organizational development.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The precise $33,813.90 is 77 percent of $43,813.97 that the NPS Central Office and Forest Lodge had agreed to in their contract. That contract was proposed by the superintendent’s office on April 15 and was approved by the Board of Education May 23. The amount just fell under the $44,000 threshold for a contract to be published for contract bidding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some observers, when looking at NPS’ budget and its proportion of state aid, may consider the $33,000 reimbursement a drop in the fiscal budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New Jersey’s largest public school district has a 2024-25 school budget of about $1.5 billion. About 83 percent of that budget – $1.25 billion – comes from various forms of state aid; some from NJDOE and most from a State Legislature appropriation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NPS and 32 public school districts have been receiving state aid after being deemed neediest as the result of a series of Abbott vs. Burke New Jersey Supreme Court “Thorough and Efficient Education” rulings going back to 1974. (This is why the 33 were first called “Abbott Districts.”)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The OFAC Fun Day ruling is part of the state’s checks and balances on how the districts spend New Jersey’s money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It’s not a fine,” said OFAC Investigations Unit manager Thomas Martin to a reporter Dec. 2. “It’s a recovery of funds that, because we deem a violation in state aid, didn’t find them. There’s a subtle nuance to that – but we don’t have a fine component.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“They determined that they felt that the district had not spent the money appropriately in their opinion,” said NPS Business Administrator Valerie Wilson at the Nov. 26 board meeting, “and quoted three statutes that they believed we violated.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The NJDOE office said that the district had violated NJAC statute 6A:23A-5.8(e)2 on fiscal accountability, budgeting and efficiency and NJSA 18A:11-12(a) on travel and field trips.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The NPS administration will tap from the other 13.2 percent of the school budget – and most likely the Newark property taxpayer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of the 13.2 percent includes school taxes that residential, commercial and industrial property owners pay every fiscal quarter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NPS, said its Public Information Director Paul Brubaker Dec. 3, will not appeal OFAC’s recovery request, saying that it is not in the interest of the school board to do so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“What I want to make clear is that \u2026 we appreciate the team from OFAC, because that they in fact did is provide us guidance on how we actually have a fun day this (2024-25) year,” said Leon. “We’re actually thankful to them in the process of kind of where we’re at right now.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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