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They got the pink slip via email Wednesday
BY TOM HESTER SR.
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
Gov. Chris Christie has fired seven of the state's executive county school superintendents, it was learned Tuesday.
Gone are the superintendents, who represented eight counties and typically earned $120,000 annually, in Bergen, Burlington, Cape May, Hunterdon, Middlesex, Monmouth, Ocean and Somerset counties. County school superintendents oversee local school board actions such as budgets, curriculum and major hirings.
The New Jersey county superintendents fired by Gov. Christie:
Middlesex/Bergen: Patrick Piegari
Monmouth: Carole Knopp Morris
Hunterdon: Gerald Vernotica
Cap May: Terrence J. Crowley
Ocean: Bruce Greenfield
Somerset: Trudy Doyle
Burlington: Lester Richens
Information on why Christie took the action was not immediately available by state Senate Majority Leader Barbara Buono (D-Middlesex) charged the governor acted on political grounds.
The superintendents were sent an e-mail message last Thursday — the last workday before the New Year's Day holiday — that included the line "today is your last day of work."
Michael Drewniak, Christie's press secretary, said the superintendents "were holdovers from the prior administration. It‘s that simple.""First the governor politicized the courts, and now he risks politicizing the schools far more than his war on teachers ever had," Buono said. "The executive county superintendents are watchdogs for school children and property taxpayers. They are professionals who went through a long vetting process and selected because they weren't going to put politics before sound educational policy. These aren't political hacks that should be in a revolving door, they're essential to overseeing the operations of our schools."
As of late Tuesday afternooon, neither Drewniak or the state Department of Education had additional comment on the firings.
Buono noted that the position of executive county superintendent of schools was created with the purpose of strengthening oversight of local districts. County superintendents are given the authority of approving or rejecting all school administrator contracts — including implementing the governor's new salary cap. They also have the authority to push districts into shared service arrangements to save costs, ensure administrational efficiency within districts and recommend the elimination of unnecessary state mandates.
The superintendents also make recommendations for consolidating school districts among regional lines. Those reports were submitted to the state Department of Education in 2010, but officials in Trenton have said there is no plan to implement the superintendents' recommendations.
"Once again, it appears that the governor acted unilaterally in the name of politics," Buono said. "Hasn't anyone learned anything from Race to the Top?"
Buono also noted that the governor is nearly a year late in filling the vacant position of Secretary of Higher Education, which was created explicitly to oversee the Commission on Higher Education and review the budgets and operations of the state's public colleges and universities.
"The governor needs to realize that filling these positions is vital to making sure the education system works for students and taxpayers," Buono said. "He calls for greater accountability, but leaves the watchdog positions vacant. He says he wants to cut spending, but won't fill the posts with people who can make those recommendations to shed excess school costs. Once again, the governor is perpetuating his cycle of saying one thing, then doing another."
