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Board attorney: contract wording change will prevent $5,000 from being excluded from superintendent’s pension calculation
Summary
At a June 15 public hearing, Hoboken Board of Education counsel explained proposed contract edits that remove a $5,000 "high‑school stipend" phrase from Superintendent Dr. Johnson’s contract so the state pension bureau will count that pay toward retirement; board later approved the consent agenda that included associated contract items.
The Hoboken Board of Education held a public hearing June 15 to consider a technical revision to Superintendent Dr. Johnson’s employment contract that counsel said is intended to protect the superintendent’s state pension calculation.
Board attorney Veto Gagliardi told the board the contract’s term (July 1, 2024, through July 1, 2029) and the superintendent’s compensation are not changing. Rather, the district proposes removing language that described $5,000 of the superintendent’s pay as a "high‑school stipend," a holdover from a prior statutory salary cap regime. "If you have that language, we won't count $5,000 of the superintendent salary when the time comes for her pension to be calculated," Gagliardi said, citing guidance from the state pension bureau and explaining that stipends are sometimes excluded from pensionable pay.
Gagliardi said the change is administrative and intended to align the written contract with current state pension rules so the superintendent’s retirement benefits are not inadvertently reduced. He added that when a superintendent’s contract is modified, state law requires a 30‑day notice and a public hearing, which the board convened on June 15.
President McGherk and several board members thanked Gagliardi for the explanation and raised no on‑the‑record objections during the hearing. Governance committee materials on the agenda (item 10.28) describe the revision as aimed "for the expressed purpose of rectifying a specific contractual language issue," with the explicit understanding that compensation is not being increased.
Later in the meeting the board approved the consent agenda by roll call; the governance report had placed the contract wording correction on that portion of the agenda. The board attorney also stated that the superintendent’s original contract and the proposed modification had been submitted to and approved by the Executive County Superintendent of Schools for Hudson County, as required by law.
The hearing closed with no additional public speakers. The board proceeded with other business, including student recognitions and committee reports.
What’s next: The consent agenda that passed included the routine approvals and the governance items referenced at the hearing; the contract revision will be reflected in the district’s posted board documents if finalized. No dollar increase or term extension to the superintendent’s compensation was announced at the hearing.
