Payout cut for administrator

ENGLISHTOWN - Manalapan-Englishtown Regional School District Business Administrator Joseph Passiment, who is retiring from his position with the district, has agreed to forfeit more than half the amount of money owed to him for unused sick time and unused vacation days.

Passiment, who has worked for the district for 16 years, was due a lump sum payout from the Board of Education of about $152,000 for the accrued time, but in the face of increasing criticism over the amount he was to receive in his retirement package, he has agreed to accept $75,887 for the unused sick time and vacation days.

"I was asked for the giveback and ended up settling for less than half of what was owed under the terms of my contract," Passiment told the News Transcript.

He declined to say who asked him to forgo half the payout that was owed to him. Passiment said now that the decision has been made he hopes the controversy will end.

Although he referred to a $15,000 limit the state put on accrued leave bonuses beginning in 2007, Passiment acknowledged that he was not surprised by the hue and cry that followed once it was known he would be retiring from the Manalapan- Englishtown district to go to work in the office of the Monmouth County executive superintendent of schools.

When Passiment retires from his present position onAug. 1, it will be at a salary of $152,000, with that salary reflecting a 4 percent raise the school board gave him this month.

Passiment will become the executive county school board administrator at a salary of $95,000. He will not be allowed to increase his pension payout through his new salary.

Veronica Wolf, who was previously employed as the assistant business administrator in the Manalapan-Englishtown school district, will become the new business administrator.

Wolf has been the business administrator of the Freehold Borough School District for the past several years.

- Kathy Baratta