KEARNY –
The Kearny Board of Education settled litigation over replacement of its copy machine vendor at its meeting on Dec. 15.
In other developments:
The board received notification from the executive Hudson County superintendent that the five-year contract the board had awarded Patricia Blood as superintendent of schools has been sanctioned by the state Department of Education.
On Nov. 13, the board voted to appoint Blood to the post, after she’d been serving for some time as acting chief school administrator, granting her a 5-year contract at $167,500 a year through June 30, 2019.
Also, board members convened their first meeting in their new conference space in the annex to their new Midland Ave. headquarters.
The building’s elevator, part of the unfinished business at the new HQ, was due for a state inspection last Friday and its fire suppression system was also scheduled for inspection by the municipal Construction Code unit. If the building gets a passing grade, then a permanent certificate of occupancy will be issued. Results of those inspections weren’t readily available at press time.
The building’s basement, which has been reportedly reserved for two Gifted and Talented classrooms, remains a work in progress.
As for the legal issue, Ken Lindenfelser, the board’s general counsel, said that when the district switched its copy machine service contract, from Xerox to Atlantic, earlier this year, there was a dispute with the old vendor over billings.
Lindenfelser said that Xerox sued the district for about $230,000 but ended up settling for a payment of $109,000 and the return of all of its copy machines from the various school facilities.
Of that amount, Lindenfelser said, Atlantic has agreed to pay $103,500. He said that when Atlantic submitted its bid for the copy machine contract, the vendor pledged to be responsible for that obligation.
“The new machines from Atlantic are all in place,” he said.
– Ron Leir
