2 Holmdel Board of Ed. Members Found Guilty of Ethics Violations, State Finds

Holmdel, NJ - Two of the most outspoken members of the Holmdel School Board have been found guilty of six ethics violations by state Office of Administrative Law Judge Jeff Masin.

In his 27-page decision made public Thursday, Judge Masin administered a written tongue lashing to board members Dennis Pavlik and Ana Vander Woude, accusing them of "mischief." Masin said the two board allies "acted in a precipitous manner, accused Board employees of criminal conduct without good cause ... and then took it upon themselves to publicly air comments that were inflammatory ..."

In response, Pavlik told Patch he and Vander Woude did nothing criminal and called the judge's findings "a slap on the pinkie."

That's Pavlik and Vander Woude pictured above, when they first ran for school board.

As Patch reported, Holmdel superintendent Barbara Duncan, along with Barbara Garrity, the board's president at the time, first asked the state to investigate Pavlik and Vander Woude in Dec. 2012, along with Phyllis Pascucci. Pascucci is no longer on the school board, and her name has since been dropped from the case.

Issue started over a Holmdel school employee working at another district

It was at a closed-doors meeting on Oct. 24, 2012 when Pavlik and Vander Woude first questioned whether a school employee, Meryl Gill, the district's Director of Special Services, was also working as a special education director in Beverly schools in Burlington County. This was a situation that could have potentially violated the state's "double-dipping" laws. According to Masin's report, Vander Woude called Gill's actions "criminal fraud" and accused Duncan of being "complicit" at worst, and "seriously negligent" at best, two charges Duncan vehemently denied and said was tantamount to her being called a criminal.

The Board's attorney at the time, Marty Barger, investigated and did indeed find that Gill was working for both school districts at the same time.

"Such work for multiple employers was not in and of itself a violation of the law," Masin wrote in his decision. "Review of emails for a period of eighteen months and phone calls for ninety days revealed that there was one phone call and approximately twenty emails during those periods that were related to work for Beverly while GIll was on the clock for Holmdel. There was no evidence of criminality. Gill had already explained to Barger before Oct. 24 that she did work for both districts, a fact that she had disclosed to her Association and she had filled out financial disclosures about the two jobs."

The consensus of the Board was that Duncan would speak with Gill about the matter, and she would ask her to keep her Holmdel and Beverly work separate.

Pavlik admitted to Patch Thursday that he and Vander Woude were not satisfied. He also said they felt "intimidated and harassed" by the board attorney for even asking the district to look into Gill.

According to the report, Barger told the two: "These are very serious accusations and we need to be careful how we talk about this. The people who are being spoke of have rights also and they might choose to sue for defamation ... if it was determined that your activities fell outside your role as Board members, you would not be covered by the Board insurance, and if that were the case, it's likely your homeowners' insurance won't cover you, either."

Pavlik told Patch that he interpreted Barger's comments as a threat.

"When he brought up that I could be sued and the board wouldn't protect me, I felt really nervous," he said. "We felt like we were being bullied and harassed by the board for bringing up a matter we were legally obligated to bring up — Gill possibly having two jobs."

Vander Woude invokes Penn State scandal at public board meeting

At a Nov. 28, 2012 public Board of Ed. meeting, covered by Patch, Vander Woude and Pavlik both read statements, saying they had been made to feel uncomfortable by the district for bringing up the Gill personnel issue. However, they were unable to say her name or the specifics of the case, because she was a school employee.

At that meeting, Vander Woude also invoked the Penn State scandal, saying, "We can never forget the lessons learned from Brookdale Community College and Penn State and the failure of their Boards to act."

The very mention of the Penn State sex scandal set off alarm bells in Holmdel. Garrity would later testify that many parents called Holmdel elementary schools in the days following, concerned about the physical safety of their children. A Patch article was cited in Masin's report about the level of alarm in the district. Duncan even had to issue a press release in early December of that year, assuring parents there was no sexual abuse or financial impropriety going on in Holmdel schools.

Pavlik said Thursday that Vander Woude had no intention of scaring the community, and she brought up Penn State to illustrate an example of a board "looking the other way; she never once mentioned the word 'sex,'" he said.

But the judge disagreed.

"As if to compound their mischief, even after the investigation had demonstrated that there was certainly no crime, and really very little in the way of even, no doubt, thoughtless overlapping of time between Gill’s two jobs, the respondents decided that they should air their frankly overwrought complaints in public at the November 28 meeting, using references that caused public concern and anguish and threatened to undermine the public’s confidence in the District’s employees and administrators," wrote Masin.

"The judge disagrees with what we did. It's just that," said Pavlik.

Next up? Vander Woude and Pavlik are facing a reprimand from the Schools Ethics Commission, which will likely be a censure from the State Education Commissioner, their attorney, Lorryn Lawsen said.

"It will be a statement from the Commissioner saying he disapproves of their conduct," Lawsen said. "There will be nothing compelling them to resign from the board."

Indeed, Pavlik said he will probably run again in November.

"Even though I am now $30,000 in the hole with legal bills because of this mess, if I had to do it all over again, I would," he said. "I reported something that was going on in our school district and I would do it again. I did nothing wrong."