District approved to get $800K in MCIA funds BY DAN NEWMAN Staff Writer HOLMDEL - After deadlocking on the matter a few weeks earlier, the Township Committee voted 4-0 Thursday to allow the school district to receive over $800,000 in bonds from the Monmouth County Improvement Authority in order to fund the purchase of capital equipment in time for the upcoming school year. "We're currently filling purchase orders for all the items that we want to get," district Business Administrator Michael Petrizzo said. "We'll have our equipment here by the time the school year starts in a few weeks. We're very glad it worked out." Petrizzo noted that the items involved in the equipment list are completely separate from those listed in the separate question that was part of April's budget. The overall budget passed but the supplemental question failed. Many items in the second question were related to the enhancement of the district's security system and the installation of instructional technology equipment. "We made sure everything was OK, as far as, not having items from the separate question on the list of things we wanted to get with the money we would receive from the MCIA," Petrizzo explained. Petrizzo noted that school districts are eligible to participate in the program with the MCIA and that the district has done so each time with success. He said that Holmdel is very lucky because of it. In order to participate, a municipality must vote to allow the partnership between the MCIA and a school district, being that the municipality may ultimately be responsible for paying the value of the bonds if the district defaults on the payments. Although the district must pay for the bonds, because they're AAA rated, they will come with a very low interest rate, Petrizzo said. "There are townships that don't have a very good relationship with their own school district, and so sometimes these things don't work out for everyone involved," Petrizzo explained. "We're fortunate in that the district and the township can work together and do something nice for the students in the school district. Initially, it was concern to get this thing done, with trying to work out everybody's vacation schedules so that all of the district reps and committee members could get together, but in the end, it all worked out." "We budgeted for and fully plan on paying off our obligation and we're glad that the MCIA and the Township Committee were able to help us out," Petrizzo said.