Three members of the Freehold Regional High School District Board of Education took a symbolic stand when they cast their votes on the 2010-11 school year salary of an assistant superintendent.
During the board’s Aug. 30 meeting at the district’s headquarters in Englishtown, board members voted on the salaries of Sean Boyce, the district’s business administrator and board secretary, and Donna Evangelista, the district’s assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction.
Boyce and Evangelista had previously been reappointed to their positions during the board’s reorganization meeting in April.
Their salaries will remain unchanged from 2009-10 to 2010-11 in accordance with a wage freeze for the FRHSD’s central office employees. Boyce will be paid $168,683 and Evangelista will be paid $151,556.
When it came time to vote on the two salaries, a motion to approve Evangelista’s salary failed.
The FRHSD has a weighted voting point system based on the population of the municipality a board member represents, and it takes 4.6 voting points to carry a motion.
The voting points are assigned as follows: Howell, 2.1 points (1.05 point per representative); Farmingdale, 0.4 points; Freehold Township, 1.45 points; Freehold Borough, 0.8 points; Marlboro, 1.6 points; Colts Neck, 0.8 points; Manalapan, 1.45 points; and Englishtown, 0.4 points.
The motion to approve Evangelista’s 2010-11 salary received 3.05 affirmative voting points, with votes by Kathie Lavin, Farmingdale; Tom Caiazza, Freehold Township; Elizabeth Canario, Englishtown; and Christopher Placitella, Colts Neck.
Voting against the motion were Barry Hochberg, Marlboro; Jennifer Sutera, Manalapan; and Heshy Moses, Freehold Borough, for a total of 3.85 negative voting points.
Board President Ronald Lawson and board member William Bruno, both of Howell, did not vote on either Boyce’s or Evangelista’s salary because of conflicts due to having relatives who work in the district.
Because the motion to approve Evangelista’s salary did not receive 4.6 affirmative voting points, it did not carry and essentially nothing will change.
FRHSD spokesman James Quirk said that if the salary vote had included an increase in pay, then Evangelista would not have received the raise and she would have remained at her 2009-10 pay. But since her salary is the same for 2010-11, the vote did not change anything.
Boyce’s salary for 2010-11 was approved by Hochberg, Sutera, Moses, Lavin, Canario, Caiazza and Placitella.
Prior to the vote, the board’s attorney, Stephen Edelstein, explained that the vote to be taken that evening was on Evangelista’s salary, not her position. Edelstein said Evangelista is covered by tenure.
During the April 26 meeting at which Evangelista was reappointed for 2010-11, her name was listed under tenured positions. Positions without tenure were designated as such in other sections of the April 26 agenda.
Several members of the public asked the board to symbolically vote against Evangelista’s salary even though Edelstein had already explained that the outcome of the vote would not affect her salary for 2010-11.
Evangelista was one of the FRHSD employees who in recent years received a doctorate degree from Breyer State University. The degrees from that online entity were later found to be unendorsed by the Department of Education.
Since that time, residents have sought at the very least an apology from Evangelista. Having never received one, they encouraged the board members not to support her salary.