School districts look at sharing services

Four local school districts are exploring opportunities for shared administrative services, including superintendents, to achieve cost savings.

The Shore Regional High School, West Long Branch, Oceanport and Monmouth Beach school districts have hired educational and organizational consultants Puleio and Strimple Associates to study the districts and recommend ways to consolidate services.

“They are small school districts right now, and the governor’s initiative is to promote shared services,” said Shore Regional High School District interim Superintendent Renae LaPrete in an interview last week. “That is what we continue to do and that is what the goal is.”

The study will focus mainly on sharing superintendents, business administrators and directors of special education among the four districts.

According to Puleio and Strimple Associates, the projected timeline for the study is approximately 90 days, or 160 man-hours billed at a rate of $75 per hour not to exceed $12,000.

LaPrete said the four boards of education would have to approve funding for the study, which will be shared equally among the four districts, by the end of January.

The consulting firm will interview members of each district’s board of education and school administration, as well as the Monmouth County executive superintendent. District records, reports and documents will also be reviewed.

According to Herbert C. Massa, interim superintendent of the West Long Branch School District, the West Long Branch and Shore Regional school districts have been in discussion about sharing services for many years.

“What is moving this now is that you have an interim superintendent here and you have an interim over at Shore Regional,” he said. “So the boards are saying, ‘Well, we have 1,300 or 1,400 kids here, maybe we should get one superintendent.’

“The buildings are across the street from each other. We should look into it.”

LaPrete said each Board of Education would use the results of the study to make decisions that are best for their district.

“The boards can do shared services in an area that they want to buy into, and they don’t have to do all of the above,” she said. “It is not a done deal that all four have to buy into it or not at all.”

LaPrete expects the study to begin in February, and the report would likely be submitted to the districts in May.

Each district’s Board of Education will then decide whether or not to accept the report, and the changes likely wouldn’t take effect until the 2012-13 school year, she said.

Oceanport School District Superintendent Andrew Orefice said in an interview that the study will take an impartial look at the four districts.

“Basically, they are going to take a look and study our districts from an unbiased perspective [whether] they see this being feasible,” he said.

Orefice explained that because both Shore Regional and West Long Branch districts have interim superintendents, now is an appropriate time to do the feasibility study.

“That was, I think, the genesis of this because we are at a point in our history where there are openings, and so I think every district wants to better study the possibilities of sharing,” he said.

Superintendents’ salaries in all four districts, which educate some 2,100 students, average more than $120,000 per year, and Massa explained that the study would provide a detailed analysis of the projected cost savings in consolidating the position.

“Let’s do some quick math. You have two superintendents who both make $100,000-plus a year, and you only have one, so you save $100,000.”

Massa explained that all the districts considering shared services must agree on any action taken. “When we had a forum, rule number one is that all boards of education that are sharing services need to get along.”

He said that on Nov. 29 the four districts attended a forum held at the Betty McElmon School in West Long Branch with four other districts that currently share services.

“They discussed how their shared services are working and what is not working, what some of the problems are.”

“We had people from North Jersey, South Jersey, Monmouth County and Ocean County.”

According to Puleio and Strimple, the study will also look at district organization, job descriptions; labor agreements, annual financial reports, 2011- 12 school budgets, and long-term goals or strategic plans.

“We will gather data via the interview process from the existing administrators in each district by focusing on their responsibilities as well as their daily tasks and functions,” the firm’s summary states.

“We will seek to determine the skill set and leadership style an individual must possess to work effectively in a shared relationship with the constituent districts.

After a review of the draft report, a finalized report will be written and shared with the boards of education and the public.

The summary adds, “Should the feasibility study result in the pursuit of two or more boards wanting to share administrators, we would be happy to submit a proposal for that search.”

In 2010 the Monmouth Beach School District had an enrollment of 285 students in kindergarten through eighth grade and operates one school. Monmouth Beach Superintendent Brian Farrell could not be reached for comment.

TheWest Long Branch School District enrolled 591 students in grades K- 8 in two schools.

The Oceanport School District, which also educates students from Sea Bright, had 581 students enrolled in kindergarten through eighth grade and operates two schools.

The Shore Regional High School District educates 589 students from Sea Bright, Oceanport, West Long Branch and Monmouth Beach.

Puleio and Strimple has offices in North Brunswick and Princeton. Principals in the firm are Nicholas Puleio and James Strimple, who is currently interim business administrator for the Matawan-Aberdeen Regional School District.