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[Schools/Education] Schools Corrupt: Cronyism Everywhere
Posted By: The Resident
Date: Sunday, 29 April 2007, at 8:03 p.m.
More bad news for our politically corrupt education system.
School cronyism rife, critics say
Sunday, April 29, 2007
By ERIC HSU
STAFF WRITERCLIFFSIDE PARK -- For 10 years, Margherita Amato has worked in the borough school district as a part-time teacher's aide, waiting patiently for a chance to increase her hours just enough to qualify for full-time status and its coveted benefits.
Amato, 53, said that instead she has watched as others with seemingly the right connections -- to former Superintendent Robert Paladino, board members and other officials -- have regularly received choice jobs, salaries and benefits.
"[Administrators] knew what was fair and what wasn't fair. They just gave the position to the person they wanted," she said.
Recently, the 2,600-student Cliffside district has started to move on from scandals involving Paladino, who last week was sentenced to three years' probation and 400 hours of community service for abusing spending accounts and making more than $110,000 in illegal payments.
But the district is still struggling to erase deep-seated resentment over what school records show are inconsistent and questionable hirings that have directly benefited relatives of board members and others connected to Paladino and senior administrators.
Some of the most bitter complaints involve jobs given to the immediate families of school trustees, including the hiring of the wives of Martin Murtagh, the board president, and Frank Tortora. The members' wives, Donna Murtagh and Kathleen Tortora, both were hired as secretaries in 2005, the year after their husbands were elected.
Neither had significant experience in education or a history with the district. At the time, Kathleen Tortora was paid the standard starting rate for secretaries, $19,800, and she now is paid $23,700. Donna Murtagh received a starting salary of $32,000 and now gets $36,000 per year.
Meeting minutes show the board members recused themselves from votes on the hires, and Tortora and Murtagh said the positions were advertised and candidates vetted as required. Murtagh said lower-level administrative jobs aren't advertised externally, but are posted in school buildings.
Never saw postings
But another longtime teacher's aide, who requested anonymity out of concern for her job, said the secretary positions were sought-after jobs that she and others never had a legitimate shot at. She said she never saw the postings at the end of the 2004 school year, and that staff members came back in the fall to find the positions had been filled. She said Donna Murtagh's salary was especially rankling.
"How did she get a $32,000 job when others have been in the system for 10 years and can't even get a secretary job? If someone comes in because they know someone and they get it, it kind of deflates you," she said.
According to board minutes, the hires were approved in August 2005, before the start of the school year. Martin Murtagh said he does not know if any other candidates applied for the jobs.
Donna Murtagh was given the secretary job at the district's new kindergarten and special-ed school, housed in the former school of the Epiphany Roman Catholic Church in Cliffside Park. She also is paid a salary of $14,000 by Epiphany as the church's director of religious education, a job she has held for eight years, Martin Murtagh said.
Murtagh said his wife's higher salary was due to the fact that she is the only secretary in the building, while other schools have at least two, and that she works extra hours preparing the school for use by the church on weekends.
The awarding of a special administrative job to Toni Ann Nebbia, the daughter of longtime board member John Padovan, also has drawn fire. Nebbia was an elementary-school teacher for the district for 10 years, but three years ago was moved to the district office, where she works full-time on test analysis and grant reporting.
Nebbia is still classified as a teacher and did not receive any salary increase with the move. She said she was asked to do the work because of her background in business. She has an undergraduate degree in business and before becoming a teacher worked as an accountant. In 2004, she received certification as a business administrator.
Padovan, a seven-term board member, said the decision to place his daughter in the district office was based on her qualifications and Paladino's judgment of the district's administrative needs.
"I never did anything to insist that she go there," Padovan said.
Inconsistent benefits
A final sore point in the district has been inconsistencies in the allocation of benefits and hours to teacher's aides. The large majority of the district's approximately 50 aides are part time, which means they work just under the 30 hours necessary to qualify as full time, and to receive benefits.
Part-time aides such as Amato said they have applied regularly for full-time hours, yet since 2003, the district's only new full-time aide jobs have gone to people with no experience as educators or with the district.
One job went to Lucy Berardo, who was hired in 2003 and is the mother of school treasurer Frank Berardo, one of the district's longest-serving officials. The other full-time job went to Romina Esposito, the wife of the owner of the Cliffhouse Grill, one of two local eateries where Paladino spent more than $26,000 on unauthorized business meals. Esposito worked for the district for two years before leaving in 2005.
Lucy Berardo said she never sought favors when applying for the job. Romina Esposito could not be reached for comment, and her husband, Bernard Esposito, declined to comment.
New blood onboard
Board President Murtagh acknowledged there have been discrepancies in hours and benefits among teacher's aides. He said such decisions typically were made at Paladino's discretion, with the board acting as a rubber stamp. Through his attorney, Paladino declined comment.
Two weeks ago, voters in Cliffside ousted Murtagh and elected Michael Lari, the first challenger to be elected in the district in 10 years.
Next year, among other changes, the district has agreed for the first time to provide paid sick, bereavement and snow days to all teacher's aides, not only full-timers.
Lari said the appearance of patronage and cronyism in the district is among his top concerns.
"Part-time people, secretarial people, those are given based on whom the board wants to hire," he said. "It should be about credentials. It should be, but it obviously wasn't."
E-mail: hsu@northjersey.com
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