A prominent educator and city council candidate is raising concerns about an $87 million school bond referendum set for a Sept. 15 vote, questioning whether the district’s recent financial control history and the proposed appointment of a business administrator with a troubled employment record should give taxpayers pause.
Marie M. Dupont, MS.Ed., Ph.D., a Roselle resident and educator, published an analysis of the two-question referendum that would authorize $79.7 million for a new Pre-K through second grade school on Chandler Avenue and $7.4 million for renovations at existing facilities.
“Acknowledging educational need does not require residents to stop asking financial questions,” Dupont wrote. “In fact, the magnitude of this proposal makes those questions more important.”
The district has identified legitimate concerns involving early-childhood space, accessibility, security and aging buildings.
Roselle spends more than $500,000 annually renting space for Pre-K and kindergarten students. District officials say a new school has been discussed since 1967.
If approved, the bond would include approximately $9.2 million in state debt-service aid. The first question is expected to increase taxes by about $60 per month for a home assessed at Roselle’s average of $122,763, with a 30-year borrowing term.
The second question would add about $4 per month over 20 years. State lawmakers have also allocated $1.4 million for costs associated with the referendum.
But Dupont said residents deserve clearer answers about total interest costs, the net local obligation after state aid, safeguards against cost overruns, and the status of corrective financial controls.
“Those questions become more significant when considered alongside the District’s recent financial-control history,” she wrote. “Before taxpayers authorize approximately $87 million in new borrowing, what evidence demonstrates that the financial controls necessary to administer an undertaking of this magnitude are now operating effectively?”
Business administrator draws scrutiny
At the center of Dupont’s concerns is the Roselle Board of Education’s proposed appointment of Dr. Steven A. Lewis as Business Administrator and Board Secretary.
Lewis previously served as business administrator in Willingboro and Hackensack — tenures marked by ethics complaints, budget crises and mass layoffs.
In Willingboro, Superintendent Dr. Malcolm X. Outlaw filed a complaint with the state School Ethics Commission on Oct. 31, 2025, alleging Lewis violated the School Ethics Act.
The complaint claimed Lewis directed the high school print shop to produce promotional materials for a golf tournament fundraiser without authorization or payment. Outlaw also alleged Lewis contacted staff while on administrative leave and directed them to clean out his office.
The commission found insufficient facts to establish probable cause that the act was violated. Other complaints against Lewis were dismissed for technical reasons such as being filed too late.
Lewis’s tenure in Hackensack was brief.
He was appointed business administrator in November 2025 but left by June 2026.
During his time there, an audit uncovered a $17 million budget gap for the 2025-2026 academic year and a projected $24 million gap for the following year.
“Our actual spending was never properly balanced against our real income,” Lewis said at the time.
Lewis and acting Superintendent Andrea Oates Parchment proposed cutting up to 90 full-time teachers, along with field trips and professional development.
The Hackensack Board of Education ultimately cut 157 jobs — including 108 teachers and instructional staff, 12 central office staff, nine administrators, 15 administrative assistants and 13 custodial maintenance workers.
The district eliminated all field trips, middle school athletics, woodshop and television production programs, and fourth-grade instrumental music.
The executive county superintendent ordered Hackensack to cut an additional $7 million from its budget after rejecting an earlier proposal as insufficient. The revised $166 million budget carried a tax levy increase of 8.9%.
August letter urged board to scrutinize Lewis
On Aug. 24, Nicole M. Nicholas, an educational equity strategist from Willingboro, wrote to the Roselle Board of Education urging members to decline Lewis’s appointment.
She said her community is “currently living through the painful, exhausting aftermath of administrative mismanagement” and that it “takes years for a school district to heal from that kind of damage.”
Nicholas also raised concerns about the chronology of Lewis’s appointment. The board considered his appointment at a June 29 special meeting, but Resolution 2.4 did not pass. On Aug. 24, the board considered Resolution 2.61 calling for retroactive approval to Aug. 4.
“Moving to retroactively approve an unauthorized placement circumvents statutory checks and balances, undermines the authority of the elected board, and compromises lawful governance,” Nicholas wrote.
The Roselle Board of Education has not publicly responded to the concerns raised by Dupont or Nicholas. The district has scheduled public information sessions ahead of the Sept. 15 vote.
A call for fiscal due diligence
Dupont, who has previously challenged New Jersey Education Association leadership over union spending, said her goal is not to tell residents how to vote.
“My concern is that they understand what they are voting on,” she wrote.
“An $87,043,171 authorization is not a decision affecting one superintendent, one Board of Education, one mayor, one political organization, or one election cycle. Its consequences will extend across administrations and generations of Roselle taxpayers.”
She urged residents to seek clear answers on total principal, projected interest and debt-service costs, state assistance, timelines, safeguards against cost overruns, and the governance structure responsible for administering the funds.
“The facts should be sufficient,” she wrote.
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