June 29th Meeting: PR Contracts, Legal Appointment, Voting Controversies, Ethical Lapses & More
- Kathie Schwartz
- Jul 13, 2023
- 8 min read
Updated: Feb 25
The June 29 RIH BOE meeting was over 4 hours long. Once again, a lot of time was spent fighting between Board members instead of discussing issues relevant to the education of our students. Some key takeaways:
Public Relations Employee Hiring (Resolution OP 19) - A Communications Consortium contract for $29K to share an employee with the district in Camden County, the Haddon Township Board of Education, was removed from the agenda. What we know so far: three Board members negotiated the contract on their own sometime before May 10, Ramapo was going to pay a higher daily rate than every other district in the Consortium, it was NOT recommended by the RIH Superintendent, the RIH Business Administrator said at the meeting that it was "an egregious waste of taxpayer money", and it appeared that the Haddon Township School District pulled out of the contract (which their BOE had already approved in May) on the day of the RIH meeting. (See contract details below). This was an attempted power grab by Board majority, to clean up the "dumpster fire" reputation of this board for Judy Sullivan's reelection campaign, and an attempt to get taxpayers to pay for it. Lucky for taxpayers, Haddon pulled out. What will the majority do now?
New Legal Counsel (Resolution OP18) - The BOE voted 5-4 to hire Porzio Bromberg and Newman as the district attorney. Porzio's hourly rates of $210 are 24% higher than the firm they are replacing, Busch Law Group's rate of $170/hour. This appointment was pushed through by the Board majority (Sullivan, Ansh, Mariani, Emmolo and Bogdansky), it was NOT recommended by the Superintendent, and concerns of conflicts were raised by the 4 minority Board members who voted against the appointment. The Porzio firm is already representing the five majority Board members (Sullivan, Ansh, Mariani, Emmolo and Bogdansky) in multiple pending Ethics Complaints and Petitions with the Commissioner of Education. It is unclear how Porzio can represent the full Board when they took sides and stated in court filings that the four minority board members were responsible for the Busch Group’s resignation. The appearance of impropriety points to a conflict, raises questions about why and how they were chosen, and if they can ever gain the trust of the full board and the superintendent who did not recommend them. More to come on this item.
Voting Down a Substitute Teacher (again!) (Resolution P25) - Five majority Board members abstained from voting on the appointment of a particular substitute teacher. The remaining 4 minority Board members voted yes. The Board note taker said the motion did not pass. Oddly, one audience member clapped loudly when the five cast their abstention votes. Perhaps she had an issue with this person? I certainly hope the five Board members did not allow a friend's vocal opinion to override the recommendation of the Superintendent. The Board is facing legal action from the first time the majority voted down a substitute, earlier this year. I'm sure there will be more to come on this story as well.
Union contract (Resolution P39) - Sometime after midnight, the Board voted unanimously on a one year contract (July 2023-June 2024) with the RIH Education Association union. Although asked during public comment, the Board did not answer the question of what changes were in the new contract vs. the previous contract. Legal fees were incurred to support the negotiation for this very short contract, and now the Board will need to start negotiating again soon for next year. As a former board member of twelve years, I understand the challenges of contract negotiations, and I wonder why the negotiations did not result in a longer term mutually beneficial contract.
Board President Stifles Business Administrator: Board President Judy Sullivan prevented Business Administrator Tom Lambe from reading his report to the Board when she didn't like what he was saying, by interrupting him and calling for a motion to not let him speak about non-agenda items, which was quickly passed by her Majority. In fact, the Business Administrator report was ON the agenda, so her motion was just a ruse to prevent voices in the school administration from being heard by the public. After being silenced by the Board Majority, Mr. Lambe walked around and distributed his 3-page statement to the Board and audience members. Several audience members used their speaking time during public comment to read his report into the Livestream recording. The full text of his 3 page statement can be found below.
Board President tries to attack a Board member's First Amendment Right to Free Speech:
Well after midnight when most of the crowd had already left, Board President Judy Sullivan accused Dr. Lorenz of violating Board policy when he responded to a reporter who reached out to him. Dr. Lorenz pointed out that while Policy states that only the Board President can speak to the press on behalf of the Board, there is nothing in the Policy to prevent him from speaking on his own behalf, as is his first amendment right to do. In fact, Ms. Sullivan frequently speaks on her own behalf on her public Facebook page (which I and many others are blocked from). In my opinion, Ms. Sullivan owes Dr. Lorenz an apology for making misleading public statements about him, when clearly he has the right to free speech. (The reporter, Mary Ann Koruth's, article was recently published on North Jersey dot com)
Change in Seating Arrangements: Last but not least, it raised eyebrows when Board President Sullivan was not seated in her usual spot front and center between Dr. Dionisio and VP Kim Ansh, but rather was seated to the far right side of the stage. There was some speculation in the audience that perhaps the move was a sign of deterioration in the working relationship between her and Dr. Dionisio, or that the contentious nature of recent meetings may have her concerned about her security?
Contract Summary - Public Relations Shared Employee Hiring with Haddon Township
Link to Haddon Township May 18, 2023 BOE Meeting Agenda:
Link to Agreement Between Ramapo Indian Hills and Haddon Township BOE Approved by Haddon Township BOE on May 18, 2023:
Full Text of Mr. Lambe's Business Administrator's Report for the June 29, 2023 BOE Meeting:
Business Administrator's Report for the 6/29/2023 Board Meeting
Thomas Lambe, SFO
Tonight's agenda item OP19 is a resolution for sharing public relations services with a Communications Consortium run by Haddon Township Board of Education. It would provide the RIH district with 44 days of a Public Information Officer at $650 per day, for a total of $28,600. I was surprised and shocked when I saw this on the agenda. Yesterday, I left a voicemail with the Haddon BOE Business Administrator in order to find out more information, but did not receive a call back.
So I started to gather information on my own.
The resolution cites the UNIFORM SHARED SERVICES AND CONSOLIDATION ACT N.J.S.A. 40A:65-1 et seq. The first paragraph from the state of New Jersey website
(https://nj.gov/dca/divisions/dlgs/programs/shared_docs/sharedsvcsrefguide.pdf), states:
AN ACT to encourage the financial accountability of local units of government through empowering citizens, reducing waste and duplicative services, clearing legal hurdles to shared services and consolidation, and supplementing, amending, and repealing sections of statutory law.
I believe that this agreement would not save the RIH district any money. In fact, it would increase costs by adding a service that does not exist and, in my professional opinion, is not necessary.
As Business Administrator/Board Secretary, I was NOT made aware of this agreement until I saw it placed on tonight's agenda a few days before this meeting. It was not included in the 2023-2024 budget and was not discussed at any Finance & Facilities Committee meetings during the budget development process, or any time before or after the Haddon Township Board meeting that occurred on 5/18/23. Yet, somehow, the Haddon Township Board of Education approved this agreement at its meeting on 5/18/23, and the agreement document was created on or before 5/10/23, as shown by the filename of the RIH resolution. Both the 5/18/23 Haddon BOE agenda and the agreement from their website are attached to this statement.
My name is on the last page of the agreement and has appeared on the Haddon Township BOE website for the past 6+ weeks. So to say that I find it disturbing that I was not notified of the RIH Board's intent would be a gross understatement. Even if approved by the RIH board, I will not be signing this agreement before my last day with the district, tomorrow, 6/30/23.
The RIH and Haddon Twp BOE resolutions each cite a job description. However, no job description appears either with the Haddon Twp BOE agenda or in the RIH Board packet for this meeting.
Furthermore, the agenda item does not state "Upon recommendation of the Superintendent of Schools" so I question who initiated the discussions with Haddon Township and negotiated with them? Instead, it the resolution states "Upon recommendation of the Policy Committee." I question how does a Policy Committee have oversight over Public Relations? I was taught in my BA classes and in legal professional development seminars that Public Relations is an administrative function led by the Superintendent, not the by Board or any of its committees.
If Board members initiated this recommendation and negotiated the agreement, I believe that action would be outside the role of a Board member and could be a potential ethics violation. As a work-around, did any board members direct the district's attorney to negotiate the agreement, without the approval of the Superintendent? I don't know. In my professional opinion, 44 days of public relations work is excessive. Dr. Dionisio does a great job of communicating with the staff, students, board and public. How is it practical that Haddon Township School District can provide 44 days of PR service to RIH, when after counting the number of allocated days for the other members of the consortium, the Public Information Officer would provide only 30 days for Haddon Twp BOE?
Does anyone really think that their employee, even if she is a public relations expert, knows the issues and needs of our district better than our own employees, and our superintendent in particular?
Additionally, the other districts in the consortium will pay Haddon Twp BOE $555.56 per day for PR, while RIH would be charged $650 per pay, based on the following:
Belleville 18 days for $10,000 Cinnaminson 9 days for $5,000 Collingswood 36 days for $20,000 Franklin Twp 9 days for $5,000 Haddon Heights 36 days for $20,000 Union Twp 9 days for $5,000 Lumberton 9 days for $5,000 Ramapo Indian Hills 44 days for $28,600
TOTAL 170 days for $98,600.
Ramapo Indian Hills 44 days for $28,600 TOTAL 170 days for $98,600.
This leaves 30 days of the 200 days of total PR time available for the Haddon Twp BOE's own public relations.
So, instead of receiving a volume discount for the so-called share services, the RIH School District would receive a price increase, compared to the other districts. Furthermore, the salary of the Public Information Officer is $85,000 for 200 days. Yet the fees to be collected by the consortium total $98,600. Even if health benefits are added to the cost of the employee, there is a chance Haddon Twp BOE would make a profit on the agreement. Yes, shared services would save money - for the Haddon Twp BOE and its taxpayers, while costing the RIH School District and its taxpayers more.
I feel obligated to repeat: The $28,600 for 44 days of Public relations service was not included in the 2023-2024 budget and was not discussed at any Finance & Facilities Committee meetings during the budget development process, or before or after the Haddon Township Board meeting that occurred on 5/18/23. I was never consulted or even alerted about this proposal. I found out about it when I saw a draft of the 6/29/23 agenda. Where was the transparency that this board supposedly strives to practice?
Based on all of the above, I cannot recommend approval of the Communications Consortium agreement Haddon Township Board of Education. On the contrary, I believe that this is not necessary for the Ramapo Indian Hills School district and believe it is an egregious waste of taxpayers' money for the residents of the FLOW communities.
