The Board of Education held an emergency meeting Thursday night to discuss a $1.5 million dollar deficit in school funding. “They have $1.5 million dollars in bills that were not on the agenda last night because they have no money to pay them,” said Lakewood Township Committeeman Charles Cunliffe, the liaison to the school board, in a telephone interview yesterday .

Cunliffe said this is the third time the Board of Education has over exceeded its budget.

“We had to rescue them four or five years ago when they were $4.3 million in debt,” he said. “The state gave them $3.3 million, tied to the town, giving them $1 million. That was a lot of money for us.”

He said two years later the Board of Education came up fiscally short again.

“The second time was a $480,000 debt,” Cunliffe said. “And it is quite upsetting that this is the third time they are in a deficit position.”

Cunliffe said the Board of Education’s business administrator, Edward Kent was let go at Thursday evening’s meeting, and that Assistant Business Administrator Katherine Fuoto, “will be gone as of Monday.”

He commended the Board of Education members for taking strong action in their Thursday evening “vote of no confidence in administration.”

“I told them at the meeting, “Bravo to you. You are the boss of them. It is you that are in control and you the ones who are to set the standards high,’ ” Cunliffe said.

Cunliffe said the administration violated the trust of the board members, but most of all hurt the school children.

“When is the state and the federal government going to do something about the Lakewood school system,” Cunliffe asked.

Board of Education Attorney Michael Inzelbuch and other members of the board were observing Rosh Hashana last night and were unavailable for comment.

OCB