{"id":7504,"date":"2016-02-03T02:07:00","date_gmt":"2016-02-03T07:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=7504"},"modified":"2016-02-03T02:51:13","modified_gmt":"2016-02-03T07:51:13","slug":"brick-boe-set-to-vote-on-contract-for-politically-connected-financial-firm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2016\/02\/brick-boe-set-to-vote-on-contract-for-politically-connected-financial-firm\/","title":{"rendered":"Brick BOE Set to Vote on Contract for Politically-Connected Financial Firm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Brick<\/a>

Brick Township Board of Education\/Schools (Photo: Daniel Nee)<\/p><\/div>\n

The Brick Township Board of Education is set to vote this week on whether to appoint a firm that has drawn scrutiny over its political connections and contributions as the district\u2019s financial adviser.<\/p>\n

NW Financial, a Hoboken firm led by a well-known Democratic campaign contributor, appears on an agenda<\/a> to be appointed as the Brick school district\u2019s financial adviser this Thursday. The firm drew scrutiny in the early days of the administration of Gov. Chris Christie \u2013 and in the years preceding his administration<\/a> \u2013 for collecting $2.2 million in fees from the New Jersey Turnpike Authority, and was the subject of an administrative review<\/a> of its fee structure. The IRS also looked into<\/a> the company\u2019s fees charged to the authority.<\/p>\n

The district\u2019s previous financial adviser, Phoenix Advisors LLC, was provided a termination notice in January when a new board majority with ties to the Democratic party took office. In a comparison of the Phoenix contract and the NW contracted rates, some of NW\u2019s fees are more expensive than Phoenix\u2019s while others are cheaper.<\/p>\n

The contracts between the two firms are structured similarly, listing an hourly rate, maximum rate per transaction and minimum rate per transaction for various services. The full fee tables for each contract appear below.<\/p>\n

\"Phoenix<\/a>

Phoenix Advisors Fee Schedule<\/p><\/div>\n

\"NW<\/a>

NW Financial Fee Schedule<\/p><\/div>\n

The firm\u2019s founder and principal, Dennis J. Enright, is a well-known Democratic campaign contributor in state political circles, with he and members of his firm having donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to political candidates \u2013 almost all Democrats \u2013 over the past decade.<\/p>\n

The board will also consider a measure that will appoint Montenegro, Thompson, Montenegro & Genz as the district\u2019s legal counsel. The Democrat-aligned firm will replace the GOP-aligned firm of Berry, Sahradnik, Kotzas & Benson, which was ousted at the board\u2019s reorganization meeting last month. The contract for Montenegro runs through the 2017-18 school year, with legal services provided at a rate of $145 per hour.<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Brick Township Board of Education is set to vote this week on whether to appoint a firm that has drawn scrutiny over its political connections and contributions as the district\u2019s financial adviser. NW Financial, a Hoboken firm led by a well-known Democratic campaign contributor, appears on an agenda to be appointed as the Brick […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3140,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[13],"tags":[41,24,1906,1905],"class_list":["post-7504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-brick-schools","tag-board-of-education","tag-brick-nj-news","tag-dennis-enright","tag-nw-financial"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/DSC_0004.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-1X2","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}