For most of 2026, East Brunswick Mayor Brad Cohen told residents that the law barred the township from using PILOT money to help pay the school district’s operating costs.
He was not the only one. At the May 11 budget hearing, Council President Dana Zimbicki said it herself: “the money that we receive from pilot cannot go towards their operating budget to help, you know, put patches on problems. It can only go to capital improvement.” (video, 44:03)
State law does not say that. A New Jersey statute lets a town like East Brunswick transfer surplus or anticipated revenue to its school board through the municipal budget. A companion school law lists “general fund expenses” among the uses for that money.
On Sept. 28, a resident stood before the council, said the law allowed it, and offered to hand council members copies of the statute. In the meetings Eyes on EB reviewed, no council member asked the township attorney, on the record, what law supported the capital-only claim or what options the township actually had. The township attorney gave no public answer. What, if anything, was discussed privately is unknown.
Eyes on EB obtained Board of Education President Marianne Tanious’s written account of the Oct. 13 meeting with Mayor Brad Cohen and Council President Dana Zimbicki through an OPRA request to East Brunswick Public Schools. We’ll share the records and report on what else Tanious documented in a separate story this evening. Eyes on EB has not asked Cohen or Zimbicki about her account.
Sept. 28: ‘I’ll give you a copy of the statute’
Vincent Le Blon introduced himself during public comment as a retired Superior Court judge and former Township Council president (video, 34:42). He was then running for council as a Republican. He told the council:
“I have copies, and I’ll distribute it to the council members afterwards, of the statute that allows the township council to assist the school district to pay expenses.” (video, 38:12)
“If you’re being told that you can’t do it, you’re wrong,” he said, “and I’ll give you a copy of the statute so that you can read it yourself.” (video, 39:04)
Councilman James Wendell was the only official to respond on the subject. He said much of the township’s PILOT revenue comes from agreements signed decades ago, and that the township was working with the district on stadium bathrooms and concessions. “We can use it for capital expenditures, and that’s what we are doing with the schools,” he said. (video, 53:48) He did not address the statute. No one asked the township attorney about it.
What the council should have asked
Under the statute, a transfer to the schools is the council’s decision, made through the budget the council adopts. So the question of what the law allows wasn’t only the mayor’s to answer. It was part of the council’s job.
Cohen repeatedly said the law barred operating aid. Zimbicki echoed that position at the May 11 budget hearing. When Vincent Le Blon pointed the council to a statute that appeared to allow it, council members should have asked their township attorney to explain publicly what East Brunswick could do.
Eyes on EB reviewed recordings of the Sept. 14, Sept. 28, Oct. 12, Oct. 26 and Nov. 9 council meetings. None shows a council member asking Township Attorney Anthony Iacocca about the legal basis for the claim, and none shows him answering it in public.
That doesn’t mean the question was never raised. Council members may have asked the attorney privately, and legal advice to a public body is generally confidential. But the council has not told residents what that advice was, or whether there was any.
There are real policy reasons a town might prefer building projects. PILOT payments depend on occupancy and end when the agreements expire, and one-time money is often better spent on things that last. Those are arguments the council could make in public. They are different from saying the law forbids anything else.
What the mayor said
A PILOT, or payment in lieu of taxes, is a long-term tax deal for a redevelopment project. The developer pays the township an annual charge instead of conventional taxes on its buildings. Under the state law that governs most of these agreements, the township keeps 95 percent and the county gets 5 percent. The school district gets no share automatically.
Cohen’s position was that PILOT money could help the schools, but only through building projects:
- February, State of the Township address: “Everyone should know that pilot money that comes into the township, if given to the schools, can only be done for capital projects. It cannot go into their general fund.” (video, 28:08)
- July 16, Town Hall: “We’re not allowed to take pilot money and use it to general expenses. They can’t go in and hire 50 more teachers with pilot money. It has to be used for capital projects, which is fine.” (video, 1:01:37) In the same answer he said the township had started helping the schools by paving the Warnsdorfer Elementary School parking lot.
- Sept. 14, Township Council: “we cannot contribute to teachers and ongoing expenses from pilot money. It is not allowed, legally not allowed, for us to pay for ongoing expenses.” (video, 2:44:17) He added: “we can’t legally give them the money for that anyway. Even if we took every pilot money dollar and gave it to them, it’s legally not allowed to do that.” (video, 2:45:44)
In none of these remarks, or in Zimbicki’s on May 11, did anyone cite a statute, a court decision, state guidance or advice from the township attorney.
Ten days after the Sept. 14 meeting, the school board’s own lawyer described the law differently. At the Sept. 24 Board of Education meeting, Board Attorney Matthew Giacobbe said “Towns can give a portion of the pilot money to the school district… it’s up to the town and it’s an agreement that would occur between the town and the school board.” (video, 13:36) Asked whether PILOT money could be applied in a budget crisis, he said, “It can” (video, 21:13). He recommended a steady yearly payment over a one-time one.
What the law says
The transfer. N.J.S.A. 40:48-17.1 applies to a town whose borders match its school district’s, as East Brunswick’s do. The council “may, in its discretion,” transfer “all or any such part of unappropriated surplus revenue or unappropriated anticipated receipts as the governing body shall deem advisable to the board of education.” The text has no capital-only limit, and Eyes on EB found no regulation or court decision that adds one.
The budget requirement. No transfer can be made “unless and until” it has been “included in the local municipal budget for the year” and “regularly approved, advertised and adopted.” The council would have to plan it and vote on it in public as part of the budget.
How the schools must use it. N.J.S.A. 18A:22-45 says the money goes first to the district’s bond interest and principal coming due that year. General fund expenses, where salaries and day-to-day operations are paid, are among the permitted uses after that.
A different state law, N.J.S.A. 18A:7G-15.1a, does limit PILOT money to buildings. It lets a town pledge PILOT revenue to repay bonds for an approved school construction project. That is one option. It is not the only one.
How the mayor’s wording changed
At the Oct. 12 council meeting, Cohen did not repeat the legal claim. He said that once growth from apartments reached “a critical point,” it would make sense “for us to be kicking in more of that pilot money, which none of us up here have any objection to doing. But you’re not there yet.” (video, 1:52:32)
The next day, Oct. 13, Cohen and Zimbicki met privately with Tanious and Board Vice President Wilbur Pan. Tanious wrote her account of that meeting on Nov. 6 and sent it to district administrators.
According to her account, board leaders told Cohen they had relied on his repeated statements about how PILOT money could be used, and “The mayor stated that, before we brought it up at a recent BOE meeting, he was not aware that PILOTs could be used for school capital or operational budgets.” She wrote that Zimbicki said funds already received “were needed for Township surplus and bond-rating considerations,” and that Pan replied the township did not have to wait for the money before reaching an agreement with the schools.
Neither Cohen nor Zimbicki has described the meeting publicly. Cohen’s public statements, which repeatedly described PILOT help for school building projects, don’t fit the part of her account about capital spending.
At the Oct. 26 council meeting, Cohen said that “the Board of Ed leadership, Township Council President and myself have begun to set up regular meetings,” with topics including “pilot revenue.” (video, 1:38:03) Later in the same remarks he described possible help this way: “if that’s something that we could work out in a way that helps them either with capital projects or in ways that will help support the schools, we’d be more than happy to do that.” (video, 1:48:27)
He did not mention a legal restriction, and he did not say his earlier statements were wrong.
In a note at the top of the e-mail that carried her account, Tanious wrote that “following last week’s BOE meeting,” which was Oct. 29, the mayor contacted Pan and Zimbicki contacted her. “The Mayor asked us to put together a joint press release stating that we would meet to discuss PILOTs. We respectfully declined,” she wrote. She said board leaders would be open to a press release “once we had reached a robust PILOT agreement with the Township,” and that any agreement “would require a full board vote.” She did not say exactly when the request was made.
On Nov. 9, Zimbicki reported that council and board leaders had met to set an agenda of topics and decide who from each side should attend, and that a date would be set for the next meeting (video, 21:43). No funding proposal or agreement was presented at the Oct. 26 or Nov. 9 meetings.
Eyes on EB filed an OPRA request with the East Brunswick Township Clerk seeking records that could show whether township officials checked the claim that PILOT revenue could only be used for school capital projects.
