The Jersey City Board of Education approved a three-year contract for Superintendent of Schools Dr. Norma Fernandez that tops out at $341,200 at a special meeting this evening.
By John Heinis/Hudson County View
The retroactive agreement Fernandez BOE contract 8-26-24obtained by HCV runs between July 1st, 2024 through June 30th, 2027. For the first year, she will earn $311,472; for the second year she will be compensated $320,816; and will receive $330,400 in the third and final year.
However, each year will also include $10,800 in longevity pay for her 35 years of service, which brings each annual salary amount, respectively, out to $322,272; $331,616; and $341,200. A copy of the agreement is not currently available on the school website.
“The test scores do not come out until September, so you cannot gauge student achievement at this time and the transparency on the budget and spending is lacking,” former BOE Trustee Lorenzo Richardson said during public comment.
“Jersey City will be stuck with a three-year contract that you likely cannot change, shortchanging the students and the taxpayers. This is indicative of Marcia Lyles 2.0 when Mayor Steve Fulop and his players controlling the majority of the board again … This a money grab with no merits whatsoever.”
She is also entitled to 25 vacation days a year, and once she retires, cannot be paid for more than 50 vacation days, which would have a maximum value of $59,898.46, the contract says.
Fernandez would have earned a salary of $254,696 for the 2024-2025 scholastic year, her prior contract shows.
Back at the meeting, Trustee Younass Barkouch expressed concerns about caucus being cancelled and the agreement not being available online for public consumption.
” … This special meeting is not really a hearing, considering that we didn’t give ample notice to the public that we’d be voting on this. To have a meeting at 5 p.m., when most people are coming out of work at 5 p.m., limits the number of people that can give comment on this contract,” he began.
“And it’s very difficult to give any comment, when there’s been no contract on Board Docs, no contract made available. And in addition, we usually have a caucus meeting and then an in-person meeting so that the public can have time to review the agenda, they can ask questions about the agenda, and then we vote on it on Thursday.”
BOE President Dejon Morris replied that the board is “moving into a different era of meetings” where committees will have their own session, while caucus and regular meetings will be rolled into a second separate session.
He also said the contract needed review and approval from Interim Executive Hudson County Superintendent Monica Tone prior to the board having the ability to vote on the contract.
Later, Morris asked Acting School Business Administrator Dr. Dennis Frohnapfel if this would create a substantial burden for taxpayers.
“This is not significantly impacting the budget for 24-25 at all,” he said, continuing that the contract is fully compliant with local and state regulations.
Like the majority of his colleagues, Morris was fully in favor of okaying a new deal for Fernandez.
“It’s never popular when you have the task of determining someone’s worth or determining the capabilities of one’s worth. So, many of us are gonna have disagreements about this, but I can honestly say by working with the superintendent, I have noticed in her, working just this year alone, that we are still cleaning up nonsense that has happened superintendent’s ago,” the board president stated.
“She has not had the opportunity to implement what she needs to implement in this district that we call the Jersey City Public School system. The reason that I say that is because, remember, when you’re dealing with one issue one year, you’re not gonna see ramifications, or even the close of that, until way after we’re no longer on this board.”
Prior to the vote, Barkouch noted that Fernandez is currently in the second year of a three-year deal and questioned why the board wouldn’t allow that agreement to run its course first.
” … Because it was the right thing to do,” Morris replied.
When asked why the contract was not posted online prior to the meeting, Morris answered “because that’s the process in which I choose to maneuver.”
When Barkouch pressed on for an explanation, Morris said time constraints between Tone’s review and approval did not leave much time for the board to upload and review the document prior to Monday’s session.
Board Counsel Ramon Rivera added that this is a rare personnel action discussed in public, and do to ongoing negotiations, the document is fluid and therefore can be changed multiple times before a final product is ready for the agenda.
Barkouch this did not happen when Fernandez last contract was granted before yielding.
Trustee Noemi Velazquez said the board had internally discussed why Fernandez’s current contract is “unfair,” with Trustee Natalia Ioffe stating that Fernandez had one of the lower salaries in the county and was well outside of the top 10 in the state.
She further stated that the Bayonne Board of Education recently granted Superintendent of Schools John Niesz a five-year contract that tops out at $305,000, which has 11 public schools, versus over 40 public schools in Jersey City.
Frohnapfel pointed out that a Star-Ledger story last year highlighting the top 25 highest paid school superintendents in the state (which Fernandez wasn’t on) started this conversation, where the average salary was $270,000.
He took the $270,000 and added merit pay (up to 14.99 percent of a superintendent’s salary), a policy effectuated under Gov. Chris Christie (R), which came out to $311,472.
The contract was eventually approved by a vote of 7-1(1), with Barkouch voting no and Trustee Paula Jones-Watson abstaining.
Whether or not her performance merited an increase, the process was less than transparent highlighting the ongoing lack of commitment of the existing board for community engagement.
It’s time for change at the JCBOE!!
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What the heck is “Longevity Pay”?
Stuffing the pockets.
Did you know that the President of the United States salary is $400,000.00 all these salaries are absurd they just have to be capped at 250,000 state wide that’s it you want the job or not
Yet the special education department is still short on resources for its students teachers still have to pay for their own supplies and most of these kids are behind and not many after school activities to keeps these kids busy so please help me understand
Sad the main goal of the BOE is to make sure employees are paid in the top ten in the state, regardless of performance of educating students or budget spending efficiency or effectiveness.
The per student budget is probably amongst highest in the country, if the superintendent is underpaid vs other districts, it must mean we over spending vs other districts elsewhere, but we are not cutting there to be inline?
And, abdicating any effort to evaluate results or a transparent process by those elected by and supposedly representing tax paying residents, with a dismissive statement that there will always be disagreements and because i said so? So, make no effort to evaluate performance or tie pay to performance at all, just up the pay the first year of a 3 year contract, which had been agreed so must have been acceptable?
Well you can clearly see it’s nothing about the students..teachers or building workers it’s clearly about a superintendent getting highly paid while the kids is lacking in education…the teachers using thier own money to buy supplies and the building workers getting paid actual pennies working hard to maintain the school buildings Bailey making end meats to pay rent and buy food but yet when we should have a been increase in our salaries when negotiating new contracts…but we have to go thru he’ll for a new contract to even surface ..the board of education is a joke they look out for each other and the only ones that benefits from this political corrupt BS.