Hainesport board approves resolution to adjust state aid for FY2018-19

The Hainesport Township Board of Education approved Resolution 18-01 to adjust state aid for fiscal year 2018-19 at its July 25, 2017 regular meeting, voting 5-0, according to the board minutes.

Board President Michael Morelli called the meeting to order at 8:03 p.m. and the agenda included a finance committee report from Finance Committee Chair Peter Scarpati. Scarpati moved the motion to adopt Resolution 18-01; Jason Cardonick seconded the motion. The minutes record the motion as carrying by a 5-0 vote.

The approval was taken during the board’s finance portion of the agenda. The minutes identify the motion and its outcome but do not include the dollar amount of the state aid adjustment or a budget line showing how the change will be applied; those details were not specified in the public minutes.

During the public-comment period, Janice Mount, identified in the minutes as a Hainesport teacher, asked, “How much losing and where coming from.” The minutes state that Mr. Scarpati and Michael Blake, the district’s School Business Administrator/Board Secretary, responded; the record does not include the substance of their answers.

Later in the meeting the board voted to add an executive session for discussion of negotiations, personnel and legal matters. The board entered closed session at 8:20 p.m. and returned to open session at 8:33 p.m., after which the meeting was adjourned.

The minutes reference the New Jersey Open Public Meetings Act (N.J.S.A. 10:4-12(a)) in setting out the public-comment rules and the board’s process for handling matters that pertain to litigation, students, personnel or negotiations. The district’s next steps, including any formal budget adjustments or staff recommendations tied to the state-aid change, were not specified in the minutes.