School business admin. to resign in December
Puleio tapped for state job; interim B.A. to be appointed
BY DANIELLE MEDINA
Correspondent

Nicholas C. Puleio

Brick Township school district Business Admin-istrator Nicholas C. Puleio resigned his position Oct. 11 after being tapped by the state to become its financial monitor for Camden's schools.

"I am flattered and honored to be chosen by Commissioner [Lucille] Davy for this tremendous opportunity," Puleio said last week. "I've been preparing for something like this for the last 27 years."

Acting state Department of Education Commissioner Davy appointed Puleio to the state monitor position for Camden on Oct. 6.

"We are pleased that Nick Puleio, who is so highly respected in this field, has agreed to take on what we all know will be a very complex job," Davy said in a press release. "This is a very important initiative in the effort to turn the Camden school system around."

Puleio, who has also worked in Spotswood, Neptune and Lawrence Township, has been Brick's business administrator for the past five years. He has also served as the Board of Education's secretary.

As Brick's school business administrator, Puleio said his biggest challenge was dealing with rising costs in the face of flat state aid.

"Hopefully there's a new funding formula on the horizon," he said.

Puleio also said he was going to miss his co-workers in central administration.

"The people in the central office are a great staff, very loyal," he said. "The community and the Board of Education are fortunate to have such dedicated people."

Puleio said his resignation had nothing to do with the sometimes acrimonious relationship he's had with the board.

"I'm leaving the district because a challenge has been presented to me and because it is the ultimate challenge for a B.A. in the state," Puleio said Friday. "For me is the next progression. It has nothing to do with anything else."

Puleio's resignation is effective Jan. 4. He will likely leave the district in the beginning of December.

"I wish you all well," Puleio said. "And I'm always a phone call away if there's an issue."

"It is very difficult as a superintendent to lose a key member of your staff," Superintendent Thomas L. Seidenberger said at the board's Oct. 11 public meeting. "Nick has been a valued adviser, a rock - and for the taxpayers, he has watched your investment in our district."

After the meeting, Seidenberger said that the district will likely bring in an interim business administrator to work alongside Puleio during the last months of his tenure.

"We hope to appoint someone by the first board meeting in November," he said.

District officials are currently looking at a list from the New Jersey Association of School Business Officials (NJASBO) to find an acting school business administrator, Seidenberger said.

Potential interim business administrators will have to provide their most recent audits from their last position.

"That's the only portfolio," he said. "Everybody else can talk a good game. An audit is an independent evaluation of their efforts."

An Oct. 18 executive session with the board will provide Seidenberger with an opportunity to update the board and get some direction from board members, he said.

Seidenberger said that he would work closely with the board to develop a list of qualifications for candidates to fill Puleio's position.

"We want somebody who's worked in a big school district," he said.

With its own transportation and cafeteria departments, those departments are like "mini businesses," Seidenberger said. "They're like subsidiaries. We move 12,500 kids a day. That's a lot."

If a new, permanent school business administrator is appointed by March 1, "we'd be doing a good job," he said.

As for preparing the 20007-08 budget, Seidenberger said he'd have to be more hands-on.

"There's no good time for this," he said. "There's really not a down turn for us. What I'll miss about Nick the most is that he was a skilled negotiator. There are a lot of issues with fixed costs in the budget."

In his new position, Puleio will report directly to Davy and work alongside the Camden Intervention Team. He was hired to correct financial deficiencies in the Camden school district's audit, monitor budget appropriations, and review the district's overall business operations.

The position of state monitor was created under the School District Accountability Act, which was signed into law by Gov. Jon S. Corzine in April. Under the law, the state can appoint monitors in school districts where serious fiscal deficiencies exist.

Puleio holds a bachelor's degree in business administration from Parsons College and a master's degree in education from Trenton State College (now The College of New Jersey), Ewing. He is a former president of the New Jersey Association of School Business Officials. He has also been an adjunct professor at Rider University Graduate School of Education since 1990 and a state Department of Education mentor for newly certified business administrators.

"I was here when we hired him," board member Frank Pannucci Sr. said, "and it's going to be difficult to replace him. There aren't too many good B.A.s out there."