JACKSON – The township school district received news that the loan it is seeking had moved forward but with that news also came notice that the loan process involved the assignment of a State Monitor to the district.
“As we explained during the last budget season, the loss of $18 million in aid over six years made it necessary to seek a loan from the state to balance our 2023-2024 budget. That loan comes with certain conditions – and one of those conditions is having a state monitor work with us to continue to operate as efficiently as possible,” Superintendent Nicole Pormilli said.
Carole Knopp-Morris, 85, who has served as a state monitor for more than 10 years will serve Jackson’s monitor. Before working for the Department of Education, she served as a Superintendent, Executive Superintendent of Schools and Assistant Superintendent. She will be in the district on a part-time basis for one year.
A state monitor can be paid up to $300,000 a year to oversee almost every aspect of a school district’s operations. In her role, Morris will have oversight of the district and will be focusing on the areas of fiscal management and the expenditure of all of the school district’s funds.
She will also be responsible for directing all business office activities, including the preparation of monthly reports, approval of all purchase activities and payment of bills and claims.
On Monday, 12th District Assemblyman Alex Sauickie, a former Jackson councilman, went to the State House in Trenton with members of the Jackson Board of Education to introduce and sign Bill A3589 that would cover the cost of the state fiscal monitor. It has a companion bill, S2064 and provides the salary and other costs associated with the Commissioner of Education’s appointment of a state monitor and other staff under “School District Fiscal Accountability Act” will be paid by the State.
Republican Assemblyman Sauickie told The Jackson Times, “It will help the whole state assuming it passes but given what we are dealing here in Jackson I specifically tailored the statement in the bill for them. We met and I signed it. There was a mirror of the bill from the senate submitted by a Democrat which makes it bi-partisan so my hope is this will get some momentum pretty quickly.”
He said the next step would probably be for the bill to go to “the Assembly Education Committee and as it involves some level of funding it would then go to the budget committee. Overall, I’m not expecting that to be a problem. There are only so many school districts in the state that has this problem.”
Board President Giuseppe Palmeri also noted it was a bipartisan issue. “Collaboration is key and I look forward in continuing to advocate for the Jackson School District.”
“Assemblyman Sauickie has been and continues to be a fierce advocate for the Jackson School District and for a fair funding formula for all school districts across the state. We are very fortunate to have such a dedicated Assemblyman here in New Jersey’s 12th legislative district,” he added.
Pormilli explained the district has been analyzing the budget for months with the County Superintendent of Schools, who determined the district was fiscally responsible. That analysis will continue with Morris on site.
“This is the next step in the process of securing the loan. We welcome any and all input in how we can navigate through the challenges of rising costs and complicated student needs in the face of devastating aid losses,’’ Pormilli added.
Mayor Michael Reina took issue with the assigning of the monitor and aspects of what the state was doing. He told The Jackson Times, “The monitor, the oversight, the veto power the redistricting that is definitely an over reach for a simple loan.”
“Whether that loan is $1 million or $10 million that isn’t a lot of money for the state and to pay someone $300,000 which is more than any superintendent, school principal or educator gets in the Jackson School District and to turn around and tell us they are going to be redistricted? What happened to home rule?”
“It is insulting. It is an over reach. I don’t feel the governor (Phil Murphy) is doing the right thing on this. We can disagree on a lot of things and we have, everyone knows that but we are paying the loan back,” the mayor said.
Mayor Reina added, “the Jackson School District is strong. They are intelligent people and they have the best interest of our children in hand. You insult the entire township of Jackson by turning around and saying we are sending someone to Jackson to watch how you spend your money.”
“It’s like a bank telling you, you can’t drive a car when you bought it or you took a loan on a house from the bank but you can’t live in it. It makes no sense. You want to get a CPA and look at the books once a month, sure, come on in we’ll show you the difficulty we are having now that you have taken $17.1 million out of our budget over five years. You are the ones who took the funding away from us,” the mayor said.
