Column: Public Should Be Heard, School Board Should Be Less Stubborn

Over the last decade or so, school boards in New Jersey have changed. They once encouraged and respected debate; now the school board majority in some cases seeks to bully dissenting members by censuring them or limiting their right to speak out.

In Parsippany, the school board is going further than that. Board President Anthony Mancuso is trying to ban people he does not like from attending meetings. You really can't make this up.

Most recently, Mancuso wrote a letter to resident Pat Petaccia threatening her with "defiant trespass" charges if she showed up at a board meeting over the next few weeks. Petaccia frequently attends meetings and questions the board.

The threat would have been totally amusing if it wasn't so outrageous. 

It is true that school board presidents, mayors and other public officials have the right to have unruly members of the audience ejected if they get out of hand. That is not disputed. Banning someone from attending a meeting in advance is quite a different matter; one that violates the basic freedoms we have in the United States.

Not surprisingly, the police said they would not support the ban and Petaccia wound up attending last Thursday's school board meeting without incident. But this issue should not pass. Just why is a board president acting like a dictator in a banana republic and, number two, where is the board's legal counsel? Should not the board attorney tell the board president that he lacks the authrority to blockade the gates? I hope answers may be forthcoming.

This sidelight is part of the still-evolving matter of the salary for superintendent of schools LeRoy Seitz. This is also an issue in the school District of the Chathams—and one that hits home, eventually, in every New Jersey school district.

Salaries of superintendents are now capped by state regulation at a maximum of $175,000 a year.  School leaders throughout Morris, Sussex and Somerset Counties, as well as the rest of the state, have bristled at the restriction, saying it will lead talented administrators to look outside of public education for employment.

The Parsippany school board is challenging the cap in court; Chatham's superintendent is doing the same himself, though the particulars of that legislation are somewhat different. (Note: An earlier version of this column incorrectly stated school boards in both communities were taking the matter to court).

The immediate issue in Parsippany is that the board executed and implemented a contract for Seitz in advance of the cap, which took effect Feb. 7.  Seitz now gets $212,000 a year and and his new pact would increase that to about $236,000 in the fifth year. The county superintendent of schools, who is a state employee, has told the board to rescind the contract. The board majority has refused to do that, despite the possibility the district could lose more than a million dollars in state aid in next school year's budget.

Mancuso disputed that at the meeting, saying his view is that the district would lose only the amount of money it is paying Seitz in excess of the cap. That would be about $41,000 a year. Sure, a state aid cut of $41,000 in an estimated $125 million budget would not be a big deal. But Mancuso doesn't reallly know what the state will do.

The larger question is just why is the board majority acting so stubbornly. As I said, they are not alone. The school board in the Chathams is following a similar course.

Support for your district leader is commendable, but let's take off the blinders and face the new reality of trying to rein in the cost of public education.

The only thing the Parsippany school board needs to do is to rescind the contract. If the cap now being challenged in court is overturned, the contract could be reinstated. It was said last week that a contract that has been already implemented can not be rescinded.

However, the board is under a direct order from a state official—the county superintendent—to do just that. Surely, a vote to rescind the contract could protect the district from losing its aid.

As the debate ensued, board member Frank Calabria, a veteran educator, noted that the issue was splitting the community. He's right about that, although this hardly seems to be an even split. Judging from the audience and on-line comments, most of the community seems to oppose the school board's view on this issue.

Calabria suggested a committee be formed, presumably to look at ways to bring both sides together. That could be a valuable endeavor, but it is not the answer.

The answer here is more obvious: Rescind the Seitz contract and perhaps more importantly, stop trying to prohibit the public from attending board meetings.

Fred Snowflack is a longtime opinion writer and journalist in the Morris County area. He is the author of the Morris County Politics blog, and the former editorial page editor of the Daily Record. Note: Fred Snowflack has accepted a communications position with Gov. Chris Christie's administration; this is his final contribution as a recurring columnist for Patch.