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Who controls the money?
(by Cindy Forrest - November 19, 2008)
Where does the decision-making power within the Parsippany-Troy Hills Board of Education lie? The answer you get will vary among different members of the board.
Robert Crawford, Board and Finance Committee member, argued his case for the committee oversight on all committee expenditure recommendations at a recent BOE meeting.
“People are struggling and we have to be vigilant. I’m not challenging anything that has been done in the past,” he explained. “I’m talking about issues that will face this board in 2009/2010.”
Crawford was expressing his concern that isolated committee spending decisions could lack an essential planning element, whereas using the Finance Committee to look at the “big picture” and consider the impact that any single expenditure decisions could have on the taxpayers makes more sense in these volatile financial times.
Board member Debbie Orme disagreed.
“Committees need to be empowered to make recommendations to the board and 80 percent of those recommendations will have a financial impact, even if it’s just the price of a book. If every recommendation has to go before the Finance Committee,” she said, “nothing will ever get done.”
Board President Anthony Mancusco also disagreed with Crawford. He said that certain standing and ad hoc committees “transcend the system.”
“Them that controls the money, controls everything,” pointed out Board member Frank Calabria. He said that the Finance Committee, which was originally the Budget and Finance Committee, was always considered to be the most powerful.
“Anything dealing with finance should have to go through that committee first,” he said. Calabria recommended that a possible solution would be to define the purview of each of the committees.
However, Orme reasoned that committee members have the responsibility to keep fellow board members apprised of committee activities and that each committee is, by extension a leg of the Board of Education. She also noted that the board has a negotiating committee.
“We as a board gave the negotiating committee authority to negotiate in good faith. We can’t take that power away,” she said.
Crawford responded that there are currently four different active negotiating committees.
“There is no central focal point,” he said, “no overview, and I think that’s wrong. There has to be someone looking at the individual and overall impact of all of these decisions.”
Mancusco said that he considered the superintendent to be the focal point.
Superintendent of Schools Dr. LeRoy Seitz pointed out that once a budget is adopted, committees could move forward as long as they stay within the established parameters of that budget.
“Once the budget has been approved, the administration is authorized to move forward with purchases. Actually it is imperative,” he said, “that the administration be allowed to expend funds that have been approved. Take the case of the additional teachers at Central Middle School. We processed those hirings without special approval because they were within the confines of the budget.”
Since the cost of renovations and additions at seven of Parsippany’s public schools came in under budget, the Board of Education soon will be making some key decisions about where and how to spend that money. The 2005 referendum approving $48 million for school improvements and construction came in $6 million under budget thanks in large part to unexpected competitive bidding for the labor portions of the project.
“I am trying to position this board into a unique role where we look beyond today and into the future,” persisted Crawford. “We have a whole different job to do now. We have to deal with issues such as nursing home benefits.”
This was a reference to the lavish perk given in a contract negotiated many years ago by the BOE, the school district’s business administrator and assistant superintendent’s nursing home care. The benefit, which no other Morris County school district offers to its key administrators, could potentially cost taxpayers up to $200,000.
During the public session, township resident Pat Petaccia agreed with his concerns.
“Mr. Crawford is right; people are struggling and to me it seems that nobody on the school board cares,” Petaccia said. “Are you reading the same newspapers that I am?”
Cindy Forrest can be contacted at: forrestc@northjersey.com.
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