Gerald VernoticaState Executive Superintendent of Hunterdon County Schools Dr. Gerald Vernotica is one of seven county education officials who lost their jobs last week when Governor Chris Christie said he would not reappoint them to new three-year terms.
Vernotica, 60, said that he was told on Dec. 30 that he wouldn’t be reappointed and that the next day would be his last. Former Democrat Governor Jon Corzine nominated Vernotica for the position in October 2007. He also served as assistant commissioner of education for field services in 2008 and 2009.
Vernotica said the news and the way it was handled came as a surprise. “Shock, actually,” he said. “We expected to be reappointed.” He said the Department of Education had reports of superintendents’ strengths, accomplishments and what they were working on. “We asked for months and months what our status was with no response.”
In addition to Vernotica, the executive county superintendents for Bergen, Burlington, Cape May, Middlesex, Monmouth, Ocean and Somerset were not reappointed. Vernotica’s annual salary had been $120,000.
Department of Education spokeswoman Allison Kobus said another county superintendent would “temporarily cover” Hunterdon until Christie nominates a replacement and the state Senate votes on the nomination. She would not say when Christie told the Department of Education of his plan to replace the appointees or who would take Vernotica’s place, instead referring questions to the Governor’s Office, which did not return calls.
Vernotica, a resident of Long Valley, was the superintendent of the 3,000-student K-8 district in nearby Washington Township, Morris County when Corzine appointed him to the newly created position. Earlier that year, Corzine had restructured the Department of Education, crafting the executive county superintendent position into one with the power to critique and revise local district budgets. The officials were also to develop plans to merge K-8 and 9-12 districts into K-12 regional districts. Prior to Vernotica’s appointment, the state superintendent of county schools was more of a coordinator and liaison than an agent for efficiency and change.
The executive county superintendent has the power to examine school budgets for ways to save money and can even remove non-instructional budget items deemed excessive. When voters rejected the North Hunterdon-Voorhees district tax levy last spring, Vernotica orchestrated a 1.4 million cut in the budget — most sending municipalities had agreed to cut just $406,000.
The “super super,” as the position is sometimes called, was expected to develop plans to eliminate school districts that did not operate schools and was initially expected to recommend a plan to merge K-8 districts into regional K-12 school districts in order to achieve efficiencies and save money for tax payers. Vernotica oversaw the elimination of the Glen Gardner school board and the absorption of the district by Clinton.
“We understand the politics,” Vernotica said about the Governor’s failure to keep the Corzine appointees, “but from a policy perspective, there was business being done here toward consolidation and efficiencies.”
Vernotica, a shared services advocate who approved the sharing of administrative positions among several districts during his tenure, was to speak at Freeholder Rob Walton’s Jan. 31 summit on shared services in Hunterdon schools.
Walton said that he hoped to convince Vernotica to speak at the meeting even though he won’t be there in his official role. But Vernotica said today that county Business Administrator Jeff Scott would take his place.