Town Hall Charges Schools for Election

The Township Council and Mayor may control Hillside's governmental purse strings, but that didn't stop them from charging election expenses to the Board of Education, the DISPATCH has learned.

According to information provided by the school board's business administrator, Kenneth Weinheimer, the schools were left to foot the bill for the overtime pay of three township employees during the April 15 school board elections.

Those workers are Township Clerk Janet Vlaisavljevic, assistant Diane Rowe, and a municipal building custodian. The clerks worked for a total of ten hours of overtime on one day at a rate of $40 and $30 per hour, respectively.

The bill left one school board member fuming.

"The Township just took a million dollars out of [the schools'] budget and now they're making us pay for their workers? I guess Town Hall just doesn't have any of its own money."

Other board members were surprised to hear that the clerk was earning so much per hour and another questioned why they would need to work ten hours overtime.