Butler Schools May Outsource Services

Superintendent Mario Cardinale plans to recommend the outsourcing of the district's business office and substitute services and the merging of two central office secretarial positions into one at Monday night's board of education meeting.

Cardinale announced the recommendations during the board's workshop meeting Wednesday in which he told the board that various committees had spent nearly a year examining the positions and whether the changes should be made for economic and efficiency reasons.

"In all fairness to everyone, it's time to make a recommendation," Cardinale said.

In the central office, Cardinale said the superintendent's secretary position and director of Student Support Services secretary position would be made into one position. Substitute services would be outsourced, which Cardinale said the district may need to go out to bid for the services for.

"We would maintain all current approved substitutes," he said.

Substitutes would also be paid the same per diem rate as they are currently paid, but Cardinale said the district could see a savings in "people power," or payroll services associated with the substitutes.

"The people would be working in the same buildings, with the same teachers at the same rate of pay that they currently work at," he said.

While Cardinale said the district is still considering "alternative options" to be presented along with the recommendations for the business office, he said he also plans to recommend the outsourcing of that office, which would reduce the time the district spends on a business administrator from five days per week to three or three-and-a-half days per week. Cardinale said the office, including secretarial positions, would all be outsourced through the Passaic County Educational Services Commission. The money saved through the outsourcing of the business office could be used for educational purposes.

"The money that is saved...I'm recommending that money be put back into curriculum and technology," he said.

Cardinale said the district would look at creating curricular advisory positions that would assist in bringing the district closer to state Common Core curriculum standards.

None of the board members asked questions or commented on the recommendations Wednesday. Cardinale said he is planning a visual presentation with cost-savings figures on the recommendations for Monday's board meeting.