The Commissioner of Education determined that a board of education could use unemployment benefits and payments from other employment that plaintiff, a tenured teacher, had received during a tenure-charge suspension period to offset outstanding back pay owed to him. Finding that N.J.S.A. 18A:6-14, by its express language, authorizes a board to deduct "sums" the suspended teacher had received "by way of pay or salary from any substituted employment," the court held that unemployment benefits are not "sums" received "by way of pay or salary from any substituted employment" and the Commissioner erred in finding the board could deduct unemployment benefits from the back-pay award. Thus, the court reversed the portion of the Commissioner's final administrative decision regarding unemployment benefits. The court affirmed the Commissioner's determination that plaintiff's other employment constituted "substituted employment" and that the board could use payments from that substituted employment to offset any back pay owed to plaintiff.
