NJ board approves $498 million Newark school lease

The New Jersey Local Finance Board approved a $498 million lease for a Newark school building that local officials said is needed to alleviate overcrowding, a vote taken after complaints from Republicans who alleged corruption and mismanagement.

The board’s vote will permit the Newark School District to lease the property for 30 years, and the district’s agreement allows it to purchase the building for $1,000 at the close of the lease term. The proposed Riverfront Elementary School is set to open in the fall of 2028 on the site of a closed Catholic school.

What on Earth is going on in Newark schools?

Robert Jackson is one of the finance board’s members who voted to allow the lease.

“No one is debating the fact of the need, and I think there is a tremendous need for our school space in the East Ward,” Jackson said. “I also believe, as I said previously, that the costs — I believe something could be built a lot cheaper and done a different way.”

District officials said Newark’s East Ward needs more and newer classroom space, and that other potential locations were inappropriate.

The ward’s eight school buildings are overcrowded, and five date back to the 1800s, said Newark Schools Superintendent Roger León, and the district is leasing other buildings and busing East Ward students to other parts of the city to make up for the lack of space.

Paul Kanitra, a Republican assemblyman who represents portions of Ocean and Monmouth counties, argued the lease is irresponsible, noting it costs more than new school buildings being constructed in Elizabeth, another district like Newark where the Schools Development Authority funds and manages school construction, and in Pleasantville.

“I want people across the whole state of New Jersey, when they read about what you guys are doing here today, to understand how much money we’re talking about. New Jersey has 9.5 million residents,” he said. “This one school alone represents more than 52 bucks in proposed payments for every man, woman, and child in the entire state over the 30-year period.”

Lease payments for the school begin at about $11.3 million and are indexed by 2.25% each year, said José Fuentes, the school district’s business administrator.

Ryan Cooper, another member of the Local Finance Board, said he found many of the meeting’s critical comments unhelpful. Speakers, he said, raised matters related to the state’s annual budget, which is approved by the Legislature and which the board has no say over.

The detractors, he said, had brought denigrating comments instead of solutions of their own.

“Perhaps there are better solutions, but no one’s proposing them,” he said. “I’m not going to hold these children hostage.”

Assemblywoman Dawn Fantasia (R-Sussex), a charter school administrator who has been critical of León’s tenure as superintendent and the Riverfront deal specifically, noted to the board that the developer of the proposed school has given “large donations to political campaigns in Newark.” NJ Spotlight News has reported the developer is Scott Fields, who last year backed Newark Mayor Ras Baraka’s unsuccessful bid for governor.