On May 17, 2019, the New Jersey Appellate Division in Centrella v. Prospect Park Board of Education issued an unpublished decision confirming that, under the Open Public Meetings Act (“OPMA”), a public entity is not required to discuss a proposed employment action prior to actually voting on that action. This case involved a former Prospect Park Board of Education (“Board”) employee’s appeal under the OPMA in which she alleged that the Board improperly eliminated her position of speech language specialist and terminated her tenured position when the Board did not discuss the proposed action at the same meeting in which it voted to take that action.
The proposed termination of Plaintiff’s position was listed on the Board’s publicly available agenda, which also explained the reasons for the recommended action, including reasons of economy. In preparation of the Board’s June 17, 2017 meeting, Plaintiff received a Rice notice, to which she responded that she wished to have her employment discussed at the public portion of the meeting rather than privately in executive session. Without discussion, the Board voted to approve the resolution involving Plaintiff, along with fourteen other employment resolutions. A call for discussion amongst Board members was made, to which Board members had no comments.
Relying on Kean Federation of Teachers, the Appellate Division affirmed the trial court’s dismissal of Plaintiff’s complaint. In rejecting Plaintiff’s arguments, the Appellate Division confirmed that OPMA does not mandate that a public entity engage in any particular level of discussion at a public meeting. Instead, OPMA gives a public employee the right to require the public entity to conduct its discussion, if any, in public rather than in executive session. While Plaintiff requested that her employment be discussed in public session, she could not compel the Board to have a discussion prior to its voting on her employment.
Sanmathi (Sanu) Dev, Esq. concentrates her practice on the representation of boards of education and charter schools in all areas of school law including: labor and employment, special education, Section 504, student discipline, FERPA, Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights Act, student residency, civil rights, tenure, OPRA, and OPMA.
