Added legal bills deal with superintendent, not building project

Administrators’ attorney says school board violated ethics code, By Fran Hardy Sparta — Spending tax dollars is a sensitive subject in Sparta these days. After passing the most expensive referendum in the state for a high school reconstruction, some citizens are still sticker-shocked. However, most are willing to foot the bill as long as all expenditures are necessary and legitimate. But Sparta taxpayers are already being billed for extra legal fees. When the board hired a supplemental law firm as of Aug. 14, and its attorneys began to attend board meetings, the public asked for an explanation. The school board has not been consistent in explaining why it has hired the supplemental firm. It is common for school boards to retain legal counsel on a regular basis. Since April 2002, the Sparta Township Board of Education has employed the firm of Fogarty and Hara of Fair Lawn, N.J., as its attorney of record. Sparta is one of nearly 50 school districts in northern and central New Jersey that employ this firm, which is well-known for its expertise in education law. It is also common for school boards to have an attorney present at public meetings. But the attorney who attended the Sparta school board meeting on Sept. 11, a working session on Oct. 12, and the board’s last meeting on Oct. 16 was from the recently hired supplemental firm. This firm — Morris, Downing, and Sherred, LLP, of Newton — is not known for expertise in education law. It is also not listed in the New Jersey School Board Association’s consultant directory, which lists the firms that school boards most commonly used. Why an additional firm? So why was an additional law firm necessary? This question, as well as the cost of having an attorney sit through the customarily lengthy meetings, has raised some red flags for the public. The board members themselves do not seem to agree on the matter. At the Oct. 12 working session, board member David Slavin said that, with all due respect to Angela Paternostro, the attorney from Morris, Downing, and Sherred, he did not approve of her presence at the meeting. “For what we’re paying her for one evening, we could buy a piece of badly needed computer equipment,” Slavin said. “You can put me on the record: I don’t think this is money well spent.” When asked for comment, board president Michael Schiavoni responded that, with the high school reconstruction project in its charge, the board feels it must have additional counsel “for a garden variety of issues that may arise during the process.” “Since they are a new firm for the board, it’s important for them to get to know how we work at meetings,” Schiavoni said. Paternostro corroborated Schiavoni’s comments, and emphasized that many school boards choose to have attorneys present at all meetings. She said her role with the school board is “to help facilitate communications and address any potential legal issues that may arise.” “They [the board] are concerned with making sure they are on top of things with such a large building project going on,” Paternostro said. The issue was raised again at the Oct. 16 school board meeting, producing a spirited debate in which Schiavoni reiterated his previous statement to the press as to the presence of the attorney. Slavin challenged him repeatedly and alluded to a discrepancy between Schiavoni’s public statements and an e-mail Schiavoni had recently sent to board members. When asked for comment, Slavin said Schiavoni had forbidden him and the other board members to say anything more to the press about the new attorneys. Legal bills not about building project With information not forthcoming from the board, records were requested through the Open Public Records Act (OPRA). According to bills sent to the Sparta school board from Morris, Downing and Sherred, charges from Aug. 22 through Oct. 6, totaling more than $3,000, appear to be for a variety of services that have nothing to do with the new building project. The series of phone calls, letters, and in-office meetings for which Morris, Downing and Sherred billed the school board are mostly for a “staff transfer issue” and “issues related to Superintendent’s correspondence and ASA (Association of School Administrators) attorney.” Sparta’s superintendent of schools, Dr. Thomas Morton, said the “staff transfer issue” and issues related to his office stem from a dispute that began last summer. A principal at one of the schools decided for administrative reasons to transfer a secretary to another office. The secretary complained to the school board, and the board blocked the transfer, even after the superintendent and the principal repeatedly admonished the board that such an action was outside its jurisdiction. The board also allegedly circumvented the superintendent by questioning a building principal at a board meeting concerning a parent’s complaint. Morton told the board he would deal with the matter upon his return from vacation last summer, but the board chose to intervene in his absence. Morton said he had reason to believe the board president has had at least one undisclosed meeting with the teachers’ union president. When the board appointed Morris, Downing, and Sherred as supplemental attorneys, it included a provision that “members of the board or the administration must first, before seeking legal advice, contact the board president or vice president for authorization.” Administrators say board has violated ethics code In a letter sent to the board at Morton’s request, Beth Finkelstein, an attorney for the Association of School Administrators, states: “Any one of these actions, by themselves, violates the School Ethics Act. For example, board members are not permitted to administer the schools. Hence, it is inappropriate to interfere with personnel issues such as the assignment of a secretary within a building and preventing the superintendent from obtaining appropriate legal advice.” The New Jersey School Boards Association provides a Board Member Code of Ethics that must be signed by all incoming board members. It states, in part: • “I will confine my board action to policy-making, planning, and appraisal and I will help to frame policies and plans only after the board has consulted those who will be affected by them.” • “I will carry out my responsibility not to administer the schools, but, together with my fellow board members, see that they are well run.” The Sparta Administrators Association, which is comprised of the five building principals, sent a memo to Morton that states: “We feel our ability to carry out our assigned responsibilities has been compromised.” They write that actions most recently taken by the board are “unsupportive and a sign of little or no confidence in our decision-making or past performance.” The principals added: “These decisions have also given those we manage the opportunity to circumvent our authority.” Morton and Schiavoni were both asked for comment on the matter. Schiavoni did not respond to a request for further comment by the time of this printing. Morton responded by providing the letter from his Association of School Administrators attorney and the memo from the principals. “The school district and township of Sparta should be celebrating the referendum and the new direction for the district,” he added. “We have some challenging tasks ahead and should be focusing on what’s most important, which is the high school project as well as the betterment of all our schools. It is an inappropriate waste of time to focus on petty power struggles. Whether we like each other or not, we still have to work together.” It is clear to the public that regularly attends school board meetings that there is tension and disagreement between some members of the board and the administration. Disagreements can cause meetings to stretch into the wee hours, taxing the patience of those who attend. The New Jersey School Boards Association provides a policy position that states: “The relationship between the Board of Education and the Chief School Administrator (Superintendent) must be marked by understanding of, and mutual respect for, their respective and distinct policy-setting and managerial responsibilities.”