Mancuso, Wendolowski Knew About County Threats to Reject Budget, But Kept Silent

When residents and board members had questions at a public meeting last month about how much money the district could lose if officials failed to rescind the superintendent's contract, neither the Board of Education's business administrator or Board President Anthony Mancuso mentioned a phone call from the county superintendent of schools warning  that the district's budget would be rejected, Mancuso said Thursday night.

Marlene Wendolowski, business administrator, received the call from Serafino on Feb. 23 and told Mancuso about her discussion, Mancuso said at a school board meeting Thursday night.

But at a public meeting that night on Feb. 23, when BOE member Robert Crawford was blocked from asking the board to take mentioned it.

At the meeting, both Crawford and other board members asked questions about

In December, Gov. Chris Christie had threatened to withhold state aid, but in February there was confusion over whether that was the case since the township received figures from the state 

Mancuso offered the information Thursday about the phone call after resident Pat Petaccia read a letter from resident Hank Heller with questions about Wendolowski's response to the .

"Did she share the content of the telephone conversation she had that afternoon with any member of the Board of Ed? If she did share it, who did she share it with? What was the information she shared? What was the justification for allowing a vote to be taken without disclosing that?'' Petaccia read.

Mancuso answered that Wendolowski told him, because he was in the room when the call came. He also said other members had not been told about the details of the conversation and that he couldn't answer further because of litigation and "attorney-client privilege.''

In an e-mail to Patch, board member Debbie Orme confirmed that Wendolowski did inform the board about a call from Serafino and asked the county superintendent to put the information in writing.  

"I commend Marlene for her appropriate action and her good judgement regarding the phone call," Orme said.

Board member Michael Strumolo said he couldn't comment on what Wendolowski said because it occurred in closed session.

Wendolowski also declined to comment.