ISELIN, N.J. — For more than three decades, Paul Rooney showed up faithfully to his job at the Kearny School District, walking the six blocks from his parents’ home to sweep floors, clean bathrooms and tidy up classrooms.
Working as a custodian at Schuyler Elementary School gave Rooney purpose, according to his family. It allowed the man with intellectual disability to earn a paycheck and keep a routine, while pitching in to better his community.
Yet in that time, Rooney’s family now charges, he was being taken advantage of — paid less than other school janitors though he performed the same basic duties.
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In a lawsuit filed in December on Rooney’s behalf, his family charged he was earning roughly $15,000 a year less than his coworkers when he retired in January 2025 after 35 years of service.
“We’re not vindictive,” said his brother, Michael Rooney, a retired Kearny firefighter who cast the family as reluctant litigants. “We just want to get what’s right and proper.”
The suit accused the town’s public school system of exploiting Rooney and his vulnerabilities in violation of New Jersey’s Law Against Discrimination. It estimated that all told, he was shortchanged more than $200,000 in lost wages and future pension earnings.
Though Kearny custodians are unionized, the suit accused the district of foisting a less generous individual contract on Rooney as he neared the end of his career. He was asked to sign the document, which capped his salary at $45,000, though he reads only at the level of an 8- or 9-year-old, the suit said.
The suit also charged Rooney had union dues regularly deducted from his paychecks, though he apparently wasn’t represented by the union, the Kearny School Employees Association.
The law requires employers to accommodate workers with disabilities and pay them fairly, recognizing their limitations often pose no hindrance to the roles they perform. But advocates say unequal treatment still sometimes goes unreported, because families worry their loved ones will be punished if they complain.
In a statement, the school district denied mistreating Rooney and said it believes it will be vindicated. The district would not address the suit’s specific allegations, but maintained there is “another side to this matter” that will be presented as the legal process unfolds in Superior Court in Hudson County.
“The Kearny School District adamantly denies any improprieties in connection with the employment of Mr. Paul Rooney,” wrote Kenneth Lindenfelser, the district’s lawyer.
Efforts to reach the Kearny School Employees Association, which covers the district’s custodians, were unsuccessful.
Rooney, 61, is the youngest of three brothers who were born in Scotland and immigrated with their parents to the United States in the 1970s. His cognitive disabilities date to a babyhood accident in which he fell from a chair and hit his head, later developing epilepsy, according to Michael Rooney, who lives in Point Pleasant and looks after his brother.
For most of his life, Rooney was cared for by his now-late parents: his father, a steamfitter, and his mother, a stay-at-home mom. As a boy, he attended classes for those with special needs in Kearny and was able to graduate high school, though it took him a couple of years longer than normal, his brother said.
Rooney began working for the district in 1989, after his mother urged him to apply. He spent his entire career in the same building, starting at a salary of $5 an hour.
“The longest job I had,” Rooney said during a recent interview with NJ Advance Media, his cadence slow and labored. “The kids didn’t want me to leave.”
As his brother and their lawyer, Eric Kleiner, went through details of the case, Rooney largely sat quietly at the kitchen table of his first-floor condo, his hands folded in front of him.
A bespectacled man with a receding gray hairline, Rooney had no trouble describing the duties of his former job — from picking up pizza boxes, to mopping the floors, to throwing the garbage away — or the 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. hours he worked.
Michael Rooney called his brother amicable and eager to please, and said he never faced discipline in his time at the school.
“I tell Paul, ‘You know, we’re proud of you,’” his brother said. “‘You accomplished 35 years of work.’”
It was as Rooney was preparing to retire that Michael Rooney said he realized his brother was being paid less than others. Michael said he asked school officials for an explanation, but was rebuffed.
“Nobody really wanted to address the issue,” Michael Rooney said. “Nobody wants to take responsibility for how this has transpired over all these years.”
The suit represents the second that Kleiner, the family’s lawyer, has filed in recent years on behalf of a school janitor with intellectual disabilities.
Last year, the Bloomfield School District paid a $150,000 settlement to a longtime custodian who charged he barely earned minimum wage, despite working there for 35 years. The district denied wrongdoing, though David Quinlan was paid as a per-diem employee and never received health benefits, a pension, vacation days or sick leave.
Mercedes Witowsky, the executive director of the New Jersey Council on Developmental Disabilities, called allegations like Rooney’s and Quinlan’s disappointing, but said she believes they are rare.
Witowsky noted both men were hired in an era when there were fewer resources for people with disabilities, and said in today’s world, there are more support systems in place to protect them.
“So it is not something that we commonly hear,” Witowsky said.
Kleiner said he suspects there are other families in New Jersey who have similar complaints. But it is expensive, time-consuming and stressful to pursue a lawsuit against the government, he noted.
That’s why litigation like Rooney’s is important, Kleiner said.
“Paul is going to end up carrying a mantle, you know, for all the other Pauls,” Kleiner said.
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