School district recoups $2.1M in SCC funds

BY DANIELLE MEDINA
Correspondent

The Brick Township School District's bottom line will get a boost in the next few weeks, when an overdue check arrives from the New Jersey School Construction Corporation (SCC), school officials said.

The district is slated to receive a $2.1 million reimbursement from the state for construction projects completed years ago, said Board of Education Chairman John Talty during his business and finance committee report at the Nov. 15 board meeting.

Talty thanked district Business Administrator Nicholas Puleio and his staff for their work in recovering the money from the state.

"I would be remiss if I didn't say that they did yeomen's work in getting this money for us," Talty said.

The reimbursed funds will be put back into the accounts from which they were borrowed, he said.

An audit last December found that the district was owed in excess of $5 million for construction projects that were completed. The school district received $1.3 million in overdue SCC funds earlier this year.

"It's a paper chase with the SCC," Puleio said. "We're not 100 percent whole yet, but the auditors were glad to hear that the cash is coming."

Brick voters approved a $28 million construction bond referendum for a number of district-wide projects in 2001. Part of the cost was supposed to be reimbursed by the SCC.

The district had already completed a number of the projects by 2003.

An elevator was installed in the Emma Havens Young Elementary School, to make the classrooms and library on the second floor accessible to disabled students.

Herbertsville Elementary School received two new classrooms and a new media center/library. Both Midstreams and Osbornville elementary schools gained four new classrooms and had their libraries expanded. Six new classrooms, including two special education classrooms and an expanded kitchen, were added to Veterans Memorial Elementary School.

Lake Riviera Middle School and Veterans Memorial Middle School each received 10 new classrooms and new science labs each. Lake Riviera also received a cafeteria expansion.

The district completed its expansion of Brick Township Memorial High School in 2004. Eighteen more classrooms were added, along with two art rooms, a music room, a health suite, four science labs and several offices. The cafeteria was expanded by renovating 10,000 square feet of the school's existing building.

The district also opened the Educational Enrichment Center, a new 20,000-square-foot building used to house special needs children who were previously sent out of district for schooling.