Millville school board resolves voting conflict issue

MILLVILLE – All current nine members of the Millville Board of Education are cleared now to vote if the board is presented with a proposed renewal contract with Superintendent David Gentile before the end of the year.

The school board is able to do that by using an old, but not often practiced, legal doctrine. The "doctrine of necessity" allows members who might have a conflict of interest — a classic case is having a relative working in the district — to vote on a matter if that is the only way for the board to function.

At a special board meeting last week, members agreed to implement that “doctrine of necessity” on the recommendation of board Solicitor Arnold Robinson.

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Gentile’s contract is not up until the end of the 2015-16 school year in July, but a panel of board members was formed in October to approach the superintendent and begin negotiations. There is a chance a contract will be proposed before two newly elected members take their seats in January, President Charles Flickinger said on Monday.

Robinson said he recently had re-evaluated each board member’s eligibility to vote and concluded that only four of the nine Millville members would not have a conflict with regard to voting on whether to rehire Gentile. A new contract for an administrator needs at least five board members to vote, he said.

The board has representatives from its high school sending districts but they are not eligible to vote on a superintendent, Robinson said.

The doctrine of necessity, as it is used currently, can be traced to a 1936 state appellate court decision. That decision actually involved a municipal government matter rather than a school board.

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Much later, New Jersey Supreme Court decisions added limiting interpretations to the doctrine. The state School Ethics Commission also has issued a number of decisions and directives, including that a school board must publicly invoke the doctrine in a resolution and publicize its decision.

Board members with a conflict of interest in this instance include Michael Beatty, Robert McQuade Jr., Joseph Pepitone, Lisa Santiago and Michael Whilden, who lost his re-election bid in November and will leave the board in January.

Those eligible to vote were Connie Johnson, Flickinger, Robert Donato and G. Larry Miller, who also leaves the board in January.

The approved resolution identified each board member with a conflict of interest and what it was.

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Beatty, McQuade, Santiago and Whilden all have immediate family members in positions that the superintendent supervises. Santiago, in addition, has a relative “out of district in a leadership position of a union.”

Pepitone, who works in the Delsea Regional School District, is chairing the panel negotiating with Gentile. His conflicts are that he is a member of the New Jersey Education Association and the Delsea Educational Association as well as being a member of a union negotiating team.

Joseph P. Smith; (856) 563-5252; jsmith@gannettnj.com