Lakewood
school monitor in tough situation
Nicholas Huba, @nicholashuba 5:07 p.m. EDT July 25, 2014
ASBURY PARK PRESS
(Photo: Robert Ward/Asbury Park Press)
LAKEWOOD
?Michael Azzara has balanced the books in some of
the toughest school districts in New Jersey.
In
his years as a state monitor, Azzara worked with
school officials in Jersey City, Newark and Paterson to help turn around their
dire financial situations. Most recently, the 60-year-old administrator worked
with four superintendents in five years in Camden, trying to clean up the
district’s muddled finances.
In
late April, Azzara was tapped for a new mission:
solving the problems within the Lakewood School District.
He
was assigned by the state Department of Education to the district after a $5
million shortfall was discovered in the 2013-2014 school budget.
Azzara now is tasked with turning around the
district’s troubled finances, as well as finding a solution to the district’s
ongoing multimillion-dollar transportation crisis brought on by the rapid
growth of private school students.
As
monitor, Azzara oversees the operation and fiscal
management of school district facilities and all district staffing. He has the
authority to hire, promote or terminate employees, and to override a superintendent’s
action or a vote by the school board on any matter involving money.
Azzara
has made his presence known in the township in a big way. First, he delayed a
vote on the $151 million budget for five days so he could have time to review
the spending plan. Then, during a May 13 public meeting, Azzara
overruled the nine-member Board of Education when it voted not to adopt the
district’s 2014-2015 budget.
“He
is part of our team,’’ said Isaac Zlatkin, board
president. “We are all working to tackle the issues facing the district.’’
Access
denied
Requests
to talk to Azzara, who lives in Evesham,
Burlington County, were denied by the Department of Education. As policy, the
department does not make district monitors available for interviews, said Mike Yaple, spokesman for the department. The state monitors are
in place to implement state policy, similar to a judge, Yaple
said.
The
silence, though, leaves Azzara an inscrutable figure
to the public. While he has overridden the board’s decisions in public, he has
given no indication of how he will close the district’s fiscal gaps and still
meet the educational needs of students. To save $4 million, for example, Azzara ended courtesy school busing for most students who
live within 2.5 miles of their schools, a decision that led to a townshipwide parental protest. They clogged Lakewood
streets for two days by driving children to school rather than let them take
the buses.
During
his career, Azzara has spent time overseeing finances
in a variety of districts in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, but has never spent
any time teaching in the classroom.
Glenn
Forney, director of the office of budget review and fiscal monitors for the
state Department of Education, said Azzara’s lack of
ties to the community made him the perfect choice to be a monitor in Lakewood.
“Everyone
has accepted him better than I had hoped. There is a very good outlook for
Lakewood. They can really turn things around,’’ Forney said.
Different
problems
In
Lakewood, Azzara will oversee a district that is
smaller than Camden and offers many different challenges than the urban school
district.
In
Camden, Azzara oversaw the finances for a district
that has 13,000 students in 32 schools. In Lakewood, Azzara
is responsible for approximately 5,000 public school students in six buildings.
However, the Lakewood district also provides transportation and special
education services for more than 25,000 students, most of whom attend private
Orthodox Jewish schools.
The
financial issues in Camden were linked to mismanagement of funds, while in
Lakewood the budget shortfall was triggered mostly by the growing private
school population, the state-mandated 2 percent budget cap and the
mismanagement of funds.
The
FBI also has looked into the district’s spending habits. Last May, following an
Asbury Park Press expos? the FBI began its own investigation into the
district’s finances. It delivered subpoenas to the district for spending
records, invoices, school board minutes and other fiscal information, district
officials have said. The FBI does not comment on the status of investigations.
As
Lakewood continued its rapid growth over the last five years, the school
district struggled to keep up with rising transportation costs and increased
spending on special education for private school students. The school district
has seen the number of bused private school students increase from 18,530 to
22,456 since the 2011-12 school year. During the same period, the number of
public school students for which the district provides transportation has
increased from 3,734 to 4,359.
The
2010 census reported Lakewood’s population made it the largest municipality in
Ocean and Monmouth counties and the seventh largest in the state. According to
projections, Lakewood’s population could grow from 92,000 in 2010 to 220,000 by
2030.
Pastor
Glenn Wilson, founder of U.N.I.T.E. Lakewood, which stands for United Neighbors
Improvements Today’s Equality, said the Azzara
appointment has been positive.
After
years of watching in frustration, Wilson and other leaders in the black and
Hispanic communities, along with church leaders, parents and senior citizens,
banded together in a historic coalition to stop rumored cuts to the public
schools by the school board.
The
group fears the nine-member board ?dominated by Orthodox Jewish residents,
most of whom send their children to private religious schools ?might not have
the same educational priorities as they do. Coalition members say they have
united to protect the educational interests of the nearly 5,000 public school
students. The group held a rally about two weeks after Azzara
was appointed to the district, and 400 people attended to show their support of
public education.
“We
are happy to have him here,’’ Wilson said. “Anytime you have another set of
eyes on something, it’s a good thing. There are going to be times when we agree
with him, and there are going to be times that we don’t. I believe that it will
provide a balance (and) that is what we are looking for.’’
Lakewood
and Asbury Park are the only districts in Ocean and Monmouth counties that are
under state monitoring. Including Lakewood, there are seven monitored districts
in the state. There are four state-controlled school districts: Newark,
Paterson, Jersey City and Camden.
Politically
savvy
In
early April, Azzara left Camden after Paymon Rouhanifard was appointed
superintendent. At that time, the district was debating how to close a $75
million budget gap in its $360 million budget for the 2014-15 school year.
The
budget gap was created by the dwindling enrollment and continued spending at
past enrollment levels, state officials said.
When
Azzara took over in Camden five years ago, the
district was facing a budget shortfall of approximately $10 million, officials
said. Since then, Azzara was able to close the
shortfall and help the district balance subsequent budgets, Forney said.
Despite
the budget gap that arose in Azzara’s final year,
Forney considered his tenure in Camden a success.
“Mike
has a good track record,’’ he said. “He was able to clean up their finances and
get them back on their feet, which is why he was sent there.’’
During
his time in the urban school district, Azzara was
described as being “politically savvy?by Sean Brown, a former Camden Board of
Education member.
“He
has been through a bunch of different situations and understands how to
survive,’’ said Brown, 31, who served on the board from 2010 through 2013. “He
was like an uncle or the godfather.’’
Before
Camden Board of Education meetings, Azzara would meet
with board members to discuss concerns they had, so those issues would not come
up during meetings, Brown said.
Azzara
would limit his comments at meetings to moments when a board member or
administrator asked him to comment on an issue.
The
same has held true during his short tenure in Lakewood. So far, Azzara only comments when board members seek his opinion on
an issue.
Gary
Frazier, a 38-year-old Camden resident and leader of the Save Camden Schools,
said Azzara’s relationship with the public was
sometimes confrontational. Save Camden Schools is a more-than 300-member civic
group that is fighting against the state’s plan to close public schools within
the city.
“Mike
was handed orders by Gov. (Chris) Christie and did what he needed to do,’’
Frazier said. “We butted heads on a variety of issues. He made it known that he
was in control at all time.’’
Azzara is
paid $96 an hour by the Lakewood district for his role as monitor, and there is
no cap on how much he can make. Azzara’s appointment
in Lakewood expires next April. During his final year in Camden, Azzara was paid $145,000.
“He
was very quick-thinking,’’ Frazier said. “He was able to dance around anything.
Mike was very good politically.’’
Nicholas
Huba: 732-557-5617; nhuba@app.com
NAME:
Michael Azzara
POSITION:
State monitor appointed to oversee
the Lakewood school district
EDUCATION:
Rutgers
University, Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration
Kean
University, Master of Arts in Educational Administration
PAST
EXPERIENCE:
February
2009 to April 2014: State monitor for
Camden City School District. During his tenure in the school district, Azzara helped overturn a $10 million budget shortfall.
July
2008 to February 2009: Business
administrator for the Muhlenberg, Pennsylvania, School District. During his
tenure, Azzara was responsible for developing the
budget and the day-to-day fiscal operation of the school district.
October
2007 to July 2008: Finance consultant
for the New Jersey Department of Education. During his tenure, Azzara helped establish the regulations to implement the
School District Accountability Act and the School Funding Reform Act.
September
2000 to September 2002: Chief of
fiscal efficiency for state-operated schools for the state Department of
Education. Azzara worked with the superintendents in
Jersey City, Newark, and Paterson to correct irregularities in their budgets.
Source:
State Department of Education
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