ELIZABETH, N.J. – Students in the Elizabeth school district allege campaign workers for three people running for the school board offered to pay them $40 to hand out flyers ahead of the election.

A student who did not want to be identified for fear of bullying told PIX 11 she was recently offered $40 to hand out flyers for the Elizabeth school board candidates Diane Barbosa, Jose Rodriguez, and Stanley Neron, the latter two incumbents running for re-election to three year terms.

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“A senior, from what I heard, he came to our table and he had a whole list of peoples names already,” the student told the news site. “And he named the people running – Barbosa, Rodriguez and Neron – saying to vote for them and Tuesday from 3-7 p.m., that he would call you or like someone would call them to go hand out flyers.”

According to PIX 11:

The political battle for control on the Elizabeth school board has been fiery for years. Past board members have faced arrest, corruption investigations, alleged ethics violations, and this year — an audit that uncovered wasteful spending.

A district spokesman, Pat Politano, said: “After school, students are free to do what they wish. They, in fact, are encouraged to engage in civic activities.”

But the candidates pictured on the flyers said through spokesperson Philip Swibinski that the allegations of paying students to campaign on their behalf are “absolutely false” and part of a conspiracy to discredit them.

The accusations are “nothing but a desperate, last minute attempt by the same corrupt politicians who ran the Elizabeth school district as a political patronage mill for years to regain power,” the unidentified spokesperson said. “We believe that the parent in question was approached by our opponents and told to make these claims.”

Regardless, parents who heard about the flyer deal were not impressed.

“I don’t think it’s the right place to do those things, especially without consulting the parents first,” father Alex Mendoza told PIX 11.

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The allegations are only the latest to surface against candidates this election, with Rodriguez previously facing an ethics complaint filed with the state School Ethics Commission by Maria Lorenz, who is also running for a seat on the school board, Tap into Elizabeth reports.

Lorenz alleged Rodriguez received $375 from Robert Varady, attorney with LaCorte, Bundy, Varady & Kinsella. That law firm was hired as general council by the school board in a vote roughly a month later in which Rodriguez recused himself, according to the news site.

Rodriguez faced another attack from another candidate for the school board, Sima Farid, who also contacted the School Ethics Commission and local police over a home outside of the school district he purchased with his brother Eduardo in 2014, though the deed shows Eduardo owns 95 percent of the home and Rodriguez owns 5 percent, NJ.com reports.

State law requires school board members to live in the school district they serve.

“The Rodriguez brothers’ mortgage provider said José Rodriguez had declared on his loan application that he intended to keep living at his home in Elizabeth. In a letter provided to NJ Advance Media, Shawn Hickey of H&R Funding wrote that José Rodriguez is listed on the loan for the Warren home as a non-occupying co-owner,” according to the news site.