At a Newark School Board meeting last year, Superintendent Roger Leon told the public that the cost for buying back the dilapidated State Street School was $10.

Not quite. The total price tag to buy back and rehabilitate a building that the district sold in 2019 for $650,000?  $4.5 million, $4,499,990  more than the cost quoted by Leon at the Board meeting.

That’s according to TAPinto Newark, which filed an Open Records Request to see the Newark Board of Education’s contract with Hanini Group, which originally bought the old and unused building from the district. The district denied the request so TAPinto sued. After a lengthy process—the district claimed releasing an unredacted copy of the contract would interfere with its efforts to buy back another previously-sold building, Maple Avenue School, currently operating as a KIPP charter school— Superior Court Judge Mayra V. Tarantino ruled in TAPinto’s favor.

“Without question, the settlement agreement is a public document,” the judge writes. “The settlement agreement was executed by the board president of the NBOE. The board president was authorized to execute the Settlement Agreement on behalf of the NBOE…The court agrees with plaintiff newspapers serve as the ‘eyes and ears of the public.’ The court further finds plaintiff’s interest in disclosure outweighs NBOE interest in maintaining confidentiality.”

From the unredacted OPRA request:

“The payment schedule required an initial payment of $2.5 million within 30 days of the agreement, $1 million within 10 days of 50% completion of the project, but no sooner than Jan. 1, 2024, and $1 million within 10 days of “substantial completion” of the project.”

The building won’t be a school but will be a museum run by the school district.

TAPinto had previously reported that the district has accumulated more than a million dollars in legal fees when it sued the Newark Housing Authority to reclaim State Street School and Maple Avenue School. The suit was filed by Leon, without Board approval.

Hey, it’s only money.