The Ocean City Board of Education on Wednesday approved new contracts with school administrators and school support staff.
Support staff will receive 2.3 percent raises each year in a three-year contract that runs July 1, 2015 through June 30,2018.
Administrators will see 0.65 percent in the final two years of a contract over the same period. Negotiations committee chairman H. James Bauer could not immediately provide the figure for the first year of the contract.
Personnel costs account for more than $31 million of Ocean City’s approximately $40 million school budget and represent the single biggest factor in determining school taxes paid by Ocean City property owners.
The measures passed unanimously with no discussion by the board.
A three-year contract with Ocean City teachers approved in September 2014 — in effect from July 1, 2014 through June 30, 2017 — included for a 2 percent increase in the first year, a 2.1 percent increase in the second year and a 2.1 percent increase in the third year.
In other business at its public meeting on Wednesday, the school board approved three goals that could bring Superintendent of Schools Kathleen Taylor 3.33 percent merit increases apiece for the 2015-16 school year.
Taylor earned an annual salary of $193,554, but new state regulations cap superintendents’ salaries at $155,000 for districts with fewer than 3,000 students. Her salary was reduced to $157,500 in a new five-year contract that started on July 1 (the regulations allow an additional $2,500 for districts with a high school).
The board approved goals that include:
- Updating the operational technology security mechanism that protects student data
- Participating in evaluation of county teachers of the year and helping the state Department of Education pick a Teacher of the Year (a goal she’s already achieved)
- Serving on the 2015-16 New Jersey Department of Education Standards Review Committee.
Upper Township representatives Kristie Chisholm and Fran Newman voted against the resolution. Upper Township representative William Holmes abstained.
Among other personnel moves, the board voted to hire Lauren Gunther, an Absegami High School supervisor of English, as curriculum director at an annual salary of $105,000.
The board also hired Michael Mattina, a vice principal at Buena Regional High School, as a new assistant principal in Ocean City at $105,000.
Check back for more coverage of Wednesday’s meeting, including coverage of reaction to the suicide of a high school sophomore last week.
