If passed, the law would apply not just to the superintendent and school board members' relatives, but also prohibit additional administrators from hiring relatives
View from the gallery of the Assembly Chamber at the Statehouse in this March 2010 file photo.TRENTON — School board president Gene Maeroff says he knows of a district where nepotism hiring is out of control.
That place would be Edison, he says, his own district, one of many that he says has a "notorious" reputation for hiring based on connections.
"Historically, there’s been a great deal of abuse in Edison in terms of nepotism hiring and in terms of hiring based on favoritism and patronage," said Maeroff, a professor at Columbia University who recently became board president. "It’s really deplorable."
Though nepotism has been a way of life in some New Jersey school districts, there are signs that change may be coming.
A bill being considered by the state Assembly would prohibit the state’s charter schools and 588 school districts from hiring staff who are related to the superintendent, a board member, personnel director, business administrator or the school district’s attorney.
According to the legislation, a relative is defined in the bill as a person’s child, sibling, parent, extended family, in-law, half- or stepchild, domestic partner, and anyone else related to the individual or their spouse "by blood, marriage or adoption."
The Assembly Education Committee approved the bill (A-646) last month with amendments that included exceptions to the nepotism rule, such as employing relatives if they are the only qualified candidate available after receiving approval from the county superintendent. The next step is for the bill to come to a floor vote in the full Assembly. A companion bill in the Senate (S-1925) was introduced by state Sen. Donald Norcross (D-Camden) in May.
If the bill is adopted, the state Department of Education would enforce the statute.
"There is a reason why nepotism rules exist. When left unchecked, many people would get friends and family on the payroll instead of the best and the brightest," said Assemblyman Paul Moriarty (D-Gloucester), one of the bill’s 18 sponsors. "The taxpayers are getting shortchanged and so are the students."
The bill expands on the School Funding Reform Act passed in 2008, which requires districts to have anti-nepotism policies that prohibit districts from hiring staff related to the district’s superintendent or a school board member, said Mike Yaple, spokesman for the New Jersey School Boards Association. This bill is needed, Yaple said, because it would apply not just to the superintendent and school board members’ relatives but also prohibit additional administrators from hiring relatives.
In the past, boards were allowed to hire relatives of members — as long as the member with the family connection abstained from voting on the hire, he said.
Instances of nepotism can be found in almost every district.
In Bloomfield, the school district’s business administrator was supervising his own sister-in-law, an assistant payroll manager. She had to be let go because staff are not allowed to supervise family members, and the district could not find another suitable arrangement to keep the employee, according to Catherine Mozak, acting superintendent.
"When it comes to nepotism, the pendulum is swinging. The rules are now becoming more stringent," she said.
Summit School District adopted a nepotism policy that’s even more stringent than the proposed bill after receiving complaints. Residents claimed that the district hired too many summer employees in the past with family ties to the district. As a result, the district fired 16 of those employees, according to district officials, and banned the hiring of employees related to any staff member — not just top administrators.
In Roselle Park, a family sued the board of education in August after a substitute teacher, Nickolas Genovese, was in court on sexual abuse charges involving an underage student. The student’s family contends in the lawsuit that Genovese was not properly vetted because his father, Michael Genovese, is a board member.
In May, Nickolas Genovese pleaded guilty in Superior Court in Union County to a charge of criminal sexual contact. He was sentenced to two years of probation. The girl’s family filed the civil suit in August.
The superintendent, Michael Genovese and the student’s attorney declined to comment.
Yet in a state with 588 school districts, keeping relatives off the payroll is not an easy task. Bob Rusignuolo, a former school board member in Nutley, said it’s unavoidable in small towns.
"Relatives were always given consideration," Rusignuolo said. "In a small town you’re always going to have relatives getting jobs, the question is if it’s illegal. And I don’t think any laws were broken."
Woodbridge Superintendent John Crowe said the bill will not affect his school district because nepotism rules have been in place since at least 1992.
Despite the rules, the state treasury department’s 2001 local government budget review of Woodbridge School District showed that eight of nine board members had a conflict of interest during negotiations with the Woodbridge Township Education Association due to family connections or past endorsement by the union.
Crowe was not the superintendent at the time and said he did not know specifically about the situation.
By Aliza Appelbaum and Eunice Lee/The Star-Ledger