Thursday, April 11, 2013
No comments made at public hearing
Residents with a home assessed at the township average of $198,700 can expect to pay an additional $6.57 a year, according to the 2013-2014 budget adopted by the Berkeley Township Board of Education. No one in the audience spoke during the recent public hearing on the $33,717,707 budget, which board members unanimously approved. "Seventy-five percent of the $33 million is base salaries and benefits," Superintendent James D. Roselli said. "We had to do a very detailed budget and break it down item by item, school by school." The amount to be raised by taxation is $26,708,133, up from last year's 26,456,346, according to figures provided by school Business Administrator Laura Venter. The 2013-2014 local school tax rate for the Berkeley …
Monday, July 23, 2012
Summer concert on tap for Wednesday
Monday - Learn how to seine in Barnegat Bay and discover the creatures that live in it at Island Beach State Park. Free daily tour starts at 1 p.m. Please pre-register at Ocean Bathing Pavilion #1. For more information, call the park at 732-793-0506. Monday - Berkeley Adult Writers' Group, 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., Berkeley branch of the Ocean County Library, 30 Station Road, Bayville. Share your creative work, novices welcome. For more information, call 732-269-2144. Tuesday - Berkeley Township Council, 7 p.m., Town Hall, 627 Pinewald-Keswick Road. The caucus meeting starts at 7, followed immediately by the regular council meeting. Hint: most of the discussion and public comment takes place at the caucus. Wednesday - Berkeley Township's …
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Berkeley board agrees to one-year extension of current contract
Teachers and support staff in the Berkeley Township school district will be receiving salary increases under a one-year contract extension announced by the Board of Education recently. The extension, agreed to by both sides on June 11, sets out step increases for all teachers except four who are at the top of the pay scale. Those four will be receiving salary adjustments of $800 each, according to the memorandum of understanding distributed at the board meeting. Support staff salaries "will increase proportionately, percentage-wise, to the teachers' step guide increases," the memo says. "We are very happy to announce a one-year settlement providing for an extension of the current contract," board member Sophia Gingrich, who chairs the …
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Deadline to apply for Berkeley schools superintendent position is May 31
The people who attended the forum last night on the search for a new Berkeley Township schools superintendent let a consultant know exactly what they wanted. Someone involved in the community. Someone already known in town. Someone who could streamline curriculums in the elementary schools to make the transition to Central Regional Middle School and Central Regional High school a little easier. Someone who can bring in revenue. Someone non-political. And while his name was never mentioned, the man they described was sitting quietly in the audience - Central Regional Superintendent Triantafillos "Tom" Parlapanides. "We've had a very political community here for some time," one woman said. "It's time to put politics away. We've lost …
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Berkeley Board of Education hired consultant late last month
It's been nearly three years since Joseph H. Vicari cleaned out his desk and left his job as superintendent of the Berkeley Township school district. He had served for six years. He did not go willingly. A previous Board of Education in 2008 took a vote and declined to renew his contract, a move Vicari says was illegal and engineered by the Democratic majority on the school board. That's when the search for a permanent superintendent for the four-school K-6 district began. It continues to this day. And it's understandable if Berkeley residents find their heads spinning over this interminable process, a process rife with politics and controversy. Grab a chair, folks. It's a long story. Shortly after Vicari left when his contract expired, …
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Superintendent search was on the agenda
It's on. It's off. The Berkeley Board of Education has cancelled a special meeting to discuss the superintendent search to replace Joseph H. Vicari, who is leaving at the end of the school year. The May 2 meeting was slated to begin at 6:30 pm. at the Berkeley Township Elementary School. But the district website says today the meeting has been cancelled. The agenda for the now-cancelled meeting listed "superintendent search and replacement" as the first item. It also stated that formal action could be taken. The superintendent position in Berkeley has been mired in controversey since 2008, when a previous board declined to renew Vicari's contract. Vicari called the vote "illegal" and said it was engineered by the then-Democratic majority…
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Process should take about six months, consultant says
Berkeley Board of Education members recently voted to hire an outside staffing firm to search for a new superintendent to take Joseph H. Vicari's place when his contract ends. Board members voted unanimously to approve a $6,500 contract with Richard Morasco's firm Leadership Advantage at the April 19 board meeting. “We don’t pick the superintendent, that is your job, but we do give you a quality pool of candidates,” Morasco told the board. Morasco served as a superintendent in Monroe Township for 19 years and was also an interim superintendent in Berkeley for a six-month period. Following the presentation, board member Sophia Gingrich made a motion to hire Leadership Advantage to lead the superintendent search. “We have other proposals but…
Friday, March 9, 2012
Fund-raising efforts given full support; $5,000 set aside for coordinators
The Stokes State Forest trip for Berkeley Township's sixth-graders, and efforts to fundraise for the trip, have the formal blessing of the Berkeley Township Board of Education. The school board unanimously approved two resolutions Thursday night, one approving the trip and setting aside $5,000 to pay for the trip's two coordinators. The other authorized the Berkeley Township Environmental Education Program Foundation to raise money to hold the trip this June for the current year's sixth-grade class. "If we are going to get this paid for without taxpayers' money we have to do everything we can to encourage fundraising by this foundation," Board Vice President James Fulcomer said after both were approved. Students will have to pay $150 per…
Monday, November 14, 2011
A meeting-filled week
Monday - Berkeley Township Council - 7 p.m. at Town Hall, 627 Pinewald-Keswick Road. Caucus starts at 7 p.m., regular meeting starts immediately after caucus. This will be the first council meeting since the Nov. 8 election. Wednesday - Mammal Mania! at the Berkeley Branch of the Ocean County Library on 30 Station Road in Berkeley. Program features live animals from around the world. For ages 5 and up. Thursday - National Memory Screening Day at the Berkeley Branch of the Ocean County Library on 30 Station Road in Bayville. Free and confidential memory screenings will be conducted by health care professionals. Pre-registration is required by calling Meridian Health Care at 1-800-DOCTORS. A consent form is required. Thursday - Berkeley …
Monday, October 10, 2011
Meetings, bingo, Chatsworth Cranberry Festival all on tap this week
Tuesday - Berkeley Township Council, 7 p.m. Town Hall, 627 Pinewald-Keswick Road. Caucus meeting starts at 7 p.m., followed immediately by regular Township Council meeting. Wednesday - Fire Prevention Week Open House - 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., Bayville Volunteer Fire Company, Route 9. Thursday - Berkeley Township Board of Education, 6:30 p.m., Berkeley Township Elementary School, 10 Emory Avenue, Bayville. Thursday - Bingo night, sponsored by Holiday City at Berkeley Bingo Club, Clubhouse #2, Port Royal Drive. Doors open at 5 p.m., bingo starts at 6:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday - 28th annual Chatsworth Cranberry Festival in Chatsworth, "The Capital of the Pines," from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Event features arts, crafts, vendors, food, music and …
JulyBaby
5:05 pm on Friday, April 12, 2013
I absolutely agree that education should be paid through income tax, not property tax. Property tax is very unfair to people on fixed incomes. I don't agree, however, that teachers are takers. Teachers don't make the tax code and should not be blamed for the regressive tax system. We all pay taxes into the education system and all get our education out of it. You got yours, don't be selfish and … more ›