Politics & Government

Retirement Still Undecided for O'Neill

A hearing date on O'Neill's lawsuit will be announced Feb. 18, but O'Neill must give notification to the board before Mar. 1.

When the Board of Education next meets on Feb. 28, school Superintendent Jim O’Neill will have an announcement to make.

O’Neill’s contract with the school board says that he must notify the board of an intention to retire at least 120 days before the current contract’s end date of June 30, meaning an announcement must come before March 1.

The board has previously declared their wish to , citing the improvements and progress made by the district during his tenure.

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Gov. Chris Christie announced that he would impose salary caps on superintendents based on district size beginning Feb. 7. The board moved early to approve a new contract for O’Neill in December, hoping to get it approved before the salary caps took effect.

O’Neill had previously stated that he would opt to retire instead of taking the pay cut of nearly $45,000, or about 20 percent of his salary. However, he said that “my preference would have been to work another three or so years.”

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The board sent the contract to Morris County Executive Superintendent Kathleen Serafino in December. She took no action on it.

Along with Long Hill Superintendent Dr. Rene Rovtar and the New Jersey Association of School Administrators (NJASA), contending that the salary cap is illegal. The suit names the state Department of Education, then-Acting Education Commissioner Rochelle Hendricks and Serafino as the respondents.

The suit asks that the court order Serafino to review and approve the contracts for O’Neill and Rovtar according to the regulations that were in effect when the contracts were submitted in December.

“Dr. Rovtar and Mr. O’Neill are not the only superintendents impacted by this,” Lepore said. “There are a lot of superintendents in a lot of different counties and a lot of different actions being filed.”

O’Neill said that the court will notify them of a .

“I am actually skeptical this will be resolved in time to help my situation but I am hopeful it will help others,” O’Neill said.

If O'Neill opts to retire, it is likely that Assistant Superintendent Michael LaSusa will be offered the position.

The school board of Parsippany faces a similar situation with that district's superintendent, Dr. LeRoy Seitz. Serafino rejected that board's contract with Seitz outright, but last week the board voted last week to pay Seitz his full salary despite the cap.


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