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Schools

Five School District Staff Members Facing Layoffs at End of June

The board of education voted on Monday night to approve a staff reduction, which business administrator Cheryl Balletto said was necessary to keep the proposed budget within a 2 percent cap.

Five school district employees will face layoffs on June 30, following a Monday night vote by the board of education to approve the staff reduction.

On Tuesday the board informed three aides—one each at Schools 1, 2 and 3—a high school teacher, and a registration officer at the board of education office that their employment would not be renewed for the 2013-14 school year.

Parents, as well as students of a teacher reportedly on the list of staff reductions, spoke out in support of staff members at Monday night’s meeting, asking the board to reconsider its position on the proposed layoffs.

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“It’s a disgrace to have children here pleading for their teachers,” Diane Sicheri told the board, urging to them to disclose a list of staff up for dismissal, which had not been released prior to the vote. “We should know what you’re voting on.”

Board president Yusang Park said that the list had not been released because there were personnel matters still under discussion.

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“The only reason we did not actually distribute it to the public prior is that we had some concerns as a board that we wanted to discuss,” Park said.

Business administrator Cheryl Balletto told Patch that the staff reduction had been necessary to keep the budget within the 2 percent cap that, by state law, school boards must work within to avoid putting their budgets up for referendum by voters.

“The board wanted to keep the budget within a 2 percent cap, and to do that we had to look at budget reductions,” she said.

The board’s proposed 2013-14 budget raises the district’s tax levy 1.86 percent—about $80 on a home assessed at $500,000—with cuts of $859,511 to spending on regular instruction.

Employee benefit costs, however, are projected to increase by nearly $2 million, and Balletto said that the district has still not entirely made up for a $3 million cut to state aid made in 2010.

Fort Lee Education Association president Gary Novosielski said that the union opposes the layoffs, arguing that they present problems for maintaining consistency in the schools.

“Most of those aides were in classes that really needed the help,” Novosielski said. “And the kids needed the help and see a familiar face. So we’re very much against it.”

Though the teachers contract also expired on Tuesday, the other unionized staff in the district were informed that their employment would be renewed for the coming school year.

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