RODECKER RETIRING

Super Announces June 30 End To Career

(Reprinted from Amboy Beacon, Nov. 24, 2010)

PERTH AMBOY — Superintendent of Schools John Rodecker, who will have served

eight years as chief administrator of the Perth Amboy public Schools when

his $216,380 contract expires on June 30, announced at last week’s Board of

Education meeting that he will retire on that day.

His announcement was met with a standing-ovation by Board members, staffers

and residents attending the meeting held at the McGinnis Middle School,

State Street.

“This evening, I’ve presented a letter to each Board member that it’s my

intent to retire, effective June 30, 2011,” Rodecker stated at the end of his

report to the Board. “I’ve been fortunate to work in such a great city and

such a great school district.

“I’ve made a lot of friends that I’ve learned to respect, and a lot of

friends I’ll always cherish and remember,” he continued. “I’ve always felt

that all of us were moving in the same direction. We all wanted to see

progress, to see our students learn and get a quality education.

“I’ve always believed that our students have the potential to go as-far as

they can, and that we just have to make them believe it,” Rodecker stated.

“We only make such a decision once in a lifetime, and everyone has to make

it,” he concluded. “This is the time, and this is the place.”

“I can think of no greater loss than our Superintendent,” Board President

Samuel Lebreault declared after everyone was seated again. “The impact is

going to be felt for many years to come.

“It comes from the heart of each and every one of us that Mr. Rodecker is a

consummate professional,” Lebreault said. “Above-all, he is a

professional.”

“I need to acknowledge and thank Mr. Rodecker for bringing me to Perth

Amboy not once, but twice,” Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum Dr. Vivian

Rodriguez said. “It was a privilege to work under him and with him. I just

don’t know how we’re going to do without him.

“Thank you, Mr. Rodecker, for this privilege.”

Acknowledged by his colleagues in the profession as a competent “finance

man” who “kept an eye on every dollar,” Rodecker will be leaving the district

with 35 years of service, 27 of them as its Board Secretary/Business

Administrator, which earned him the title of “Assistant Superintendent for

Business” before he was promoted to the top job about eight years ago.

Rodecker also is leaving at a time when a financial cloud hangs-over the

district after a Bernardsville insurance broker admitted in July that he

bilked the Board out of $2,593,400 over nearly six years for healthcare-related

programs that never existed. Less than 24 hours later, a State Grand Jury

handed-up an indictment charging two other brokers and their companies with

participating in the same alleged scheme.

Insurance brokers Francis Gartland of Baltimore, MD, and Brian Foley of

Summit and two of Gartland’s companies, Gartland & Co. Inc. and

E-Administrative Systems Inc., are charged with Conspiracy, Forgery, Money Laundering and

Theft by Deception.

The plea and that indictment followed the previous arraignment of Gartland,

his son-in-law Derek Johnson of Luthersville, MD, and their business

partner, Thomas Kelleher of Parksville, MD, on charges that they bilked the City

of Perth Amboy out of $216,495 for another healthcare-related program that

never existed. Two other Gartland-related companies, Federal Hill Risk

Management LLC and East Coast Administrative Services Inc., also were indicted in

June with those three defendants.

In July, Frank Cotroneo made a surprise appearance before Superior Court

Judge Bradley Ferencz, sitting in New Brunswick, to enter a guilty plea to

accusations of False Representation for a Government Contract and Theft by

Deception before a Grand Jury review. The maximum sentence for each charge could

be a prison term of up-to 10 years and fines of up-to $5 million.

However, under a plea-agreement struck by Deputy Attorneys General Diane

Deal and Pearl Minato, Cotroneo’s exposure would be limited to a prison term

of eight years, with four years of parole ineligibility. That sentence could

be reduced further to a prison term of six years, with three years of parole

ineligibility, if Cotroneo cooperated with an “ongoing investigation” not

described in court documents.

Cotroneo also agreed to pay restitution of $2.6 million to the Board, along

with a Public Corruption Profiteering Penalty (PCPP) of $2.9 million.

“Basically, Cotroneo is charged with taking funds that were earmarked and

paid-for as part of the Perth Amboy Board of Education’s contract with

Cigna,” state Attorney General’s Office spokesman Paul Loriquet has explained.

In the July indictment, Gartland, Foley, Gartland & Co. Inc. and

E-Administrative Systems Inc., are charged with conspiring with an unnamed male

“Co-Conspirator No. 1,” possibly Cotroneo, in an elaborate scheme to evade

detection by either local school officials or federal tax authorities.

The 36-page indictment alleges that the Board President’s signature was

forged and used on document six times: Nov. 18, 2003, Feb. 23 and Sept. 16,

2004, May 10, 2005, April 1, 2006 and Feb. 12, 2007.

That indictment also alleges that Gartland offered this co-conspirator

“approximately one-half” the proceeds from the massive multi-year theft, but the

co-conspirator’s share was not paid to him directly. Instead, payments were

alleged to have been made to pay the co-conspirator’s personal bills.

According to usually-reliable sources, Rodecker did not recommend the

hiring of Gartland in the Perth Amboy school district, but was overridden by a

majority of Board members.

Both alleged schemes in Perth Amboy are believed to have been uncovered as

the result of a year-long investigation by both federal and state

authorities into contracts between local governments and school boards and the

insurance brokers who manage their policies in about 30 municipalities and school

districts in at-least 10 counties throughout the Garden State.

Since that time, an 18-count federal indictment was handed-up by a U.S.

District Court Grand Jury charging Gartland and Toms River Regional School

District Superintendent of Schools Michael Ritacco with a litany of federal

corruption charges.

The 25-page indictment, a copy of which has been obtained by the Amboy

Beacon, details an elaborate scheme to pad insurance contracts to allegedly

fund a system of kickbacks in which Ritacco is accused of taking between $1

million and $2 million in bribes from Gartland and Cotroneo between 2002 and

June 2010.