At last night’s meeting, the public saw that
$265,867.06 is being returned to the general fund because the district overpaid
on its controversial shared service agreement with the borough.
The $265,867.06 was part of the additional state aid
that Lodi received in the middle of the summer.
Lodi already had a budget in place for 2018-19 school year. Of course it was padded. It actually showed a 7.5% tax increase absent the other additional state aid the district received prior to the summer.
Marc Capizzi, Frank Quatrone, and Joe Leto waited
until the deadline to call a meeting and allow the board to discuss how the aid
should be spent. Before the board could
even discuss the aid, Mike Nardino made a motion to NOT use all of the additional
aid for tax relief. He wanted to use
$500,000 to pay off the debt for the HS turf. I found this suspect because he never offered that idea before. In fact, he was borrowing $2,000,000 for the field while he was stashing away $8,00,000 for the unnecessary administration building.
Conveniently, Marc Capizzi already had a resolution
drawn up for Mike Nardino’s motion. Nardino
and the Capizzis met privately and worked around the board.
I objected to their backroom deals and pointed out
their family relationships. Their
actions were completely inappropriate.
They lacked all transparency.
It turned out that only $234,132.94 was needed to pay
off the turf. Capizzi and Nardino drew up the resolution
that overpaid $265,867.06 or 114%.
Both Nardino and Capizzi claim to be accountants. How
could they have been off by that much?
How could they have a resolution drawn up without verifying the
proper figure?
Most likely their actions were intentional. They prevented $265,867.06 from being returned
to the Lodi taxpayers. Less money for
the taxpayers. More money for politicians.
Some past posts on the subject:
