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Asbury Park Press - Battle over New Jersey’s budget nears- Benefits alliance already forgotten ... "Sweeney said the Democrats’ budget includes $447 million more for the districts covered by the Abbott vs. Burke school-funding lawsuit, as the state Supreme Court required in May. It also brings more than 180 other districts up to the “adequacy level” promised under the state’s 2008 school-aid formula and provides $87 million more for wealthier districts with spending considered above adequacy. All districts would get additional funding beyond Christie’s proposal, he said..."
Star Ledger - N.J. Legislature to hold budget hearings with deadline nearing
Njspotlight.com -Package of Four Controversial Charter Bills To Come Before Assembly
Daily Journal - Unions face long, hard fight in N.J.
The Record - Budget cuts create education exodus
Asbury Park Press - Battle over New Jersey’s budget nears- Benefits alliance already forgotten
Star Ledger - N.J. Legislature to hold budget hearings with deadline nearing
Njspotlight.com -Package of Four Controversial Charter Bills To Come Before Assembly
Daily Journal - Unions face long, hard fight in N.J.
The Record - Budget cuts create education exodus
Asbury Park Press - Battle over New Jersey’s budget nears- Benefits alliance already forgotten
6:14 PM, Jun. 26, 2011 |
Written by
Michael Symons | Statehouse Bureau
TRENTON — Those unusual political alliances that muscled through unprecedented legislation changing public workers’ benefits last week won’t be seen again in this week’s far-more-familiar battle over New Jersey’s budget.
Democrats are rejecting Gov. Chris Christie’s budget plan in favor of their own blueprint, including higher income taxes for millionaires, an additional $1.1 billion in school aid, tax cuts for seniors and funding for family planning, urban enterprize zones and cities and towns with public-safety problems.
Christie -- mere hours after touting bipartisanship in a national television interview Friday -- ripped the alternate budget plan and, six days early, certified the state revenues that will be available for the new budget year even before Democrats could introduce, let alone pass, the millionaires’ tax.
“The proposed budget from the Democrats is just more of the same unrealistic, pie in the sky, fantasy budgeting they brought to New Jersey for the eight years before we arrived,” Christie said. “… This proposal reaffirms the Democrats’ commitment to job-killing tax increases and an unrepentant addiction to spending.”
Senate President Stephen Sweeney, D-Gloucester, says budget analysts from the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services project revenue will be roughly $290 million higher than the Christie administration forecasts. Other money is available from programs with unspent funds, he said.
“We’re being conservative in this. We’re not overestimating. We’re not overreaching,” Sweeney said.
Sweeney said the Democrats’ budget includes $447 million more for the districts covered by the Abbott vs. Burke school-funding lawsuit, as the state Supreme Court required in May. It also brings more than 180 other districts up to the “adequacy level” promised under the state’s 2008 school-aid formula and provides $87 million more for wealthier districts with spending considered above adequacy. All districts would get additional funding beyond Christie’s proposal, he said.
The Democrats’ budget would eliminate restrictions on the “Senior Freeze” program that allows seniors to lock in their property taxes at current levels, with the state picking up future increases. It would also raise the cap on how much of a senior’s income is tax-exempt to $100,000 from $20,000 today.
The plan also reverses last year’s reduction to the “earned income tax credit” available to low-income workers, makes $50 million in funding to 100 municipalities to hire police officers and firefighters and includes funds to keep Hagedorn Psychiatric Hospital and Vineland Developmental Center open.
It will also seek to put limits on how far the Christie administration can go in changing future Medicaid eligibility rules, including an expansion of the use of managed care, through a resolution -- which wouldn’t need Christie’s approval or be subject to his veto -- making clear to federal officials, who would have to approve any changes, what the Legislature endorses.
“We have a great deal of concern because it’s inhuman to think that you’re going to only make it eligible for people making $5,000 in this state,” Sweeney said.
Human Services Commissioner Jennifer Velez told the Senate health committee Thursday that Medicaid will cost New Jersey taxpayers nearly $5 billion. She said the program has grown by 22 percent since 2007 and $1 billion in federal stimulus funding has expired, prompting New Jersey -- like many states -- to evaluate its program.
“Medicaid is, in fact, ripe for reform. We may debate the how and the when, but the state must redesign the program if we expect to protect benefits to the most vulnerable, the very low-income, the aged, blind, disabled populations and children,” Velez said.
Between July 1 and early fall, nearly all Medicaid fee-for-service plans will become managed-care plans. Such an approach has been used since 1995 with certain populations of Medicaid enrollees, and 75 percent are already in such plans, Velez said. Certain prescriptions and doctor-patient relationships will be grandfathered in, she said.
The income tax change Democrats say they will pass would establish a new top rate of 10.75 percent, applicable to any household income over $1 million. Currently, the top rate is 8.97 percent, applicable to incomes over $500,000. Higher rates topping out at 10.75 percent were in effect in 2009.
Christie last year ve-toed a bill passed by Democrats that would have taxed incomes over $1 million at a 10.75 percent rate.
Sweeney said the in-come tax change would generate $500 million to $550 million. He said the proposed increase would likely sunset af-ter one year.
Legislative committees will begin considering the budget at hearings today.
Last month, the Christie administration in-creased its projection for tax collections by $511 million -- $242 million in the current budget and $269 mil-lion for the budget year that starts in July -- due to taxes paid by wealthy households on larger-than-expected bonus-type income.
It also announced how it intended to spend that extra revenue, in-cluding an additional $253 million payment into the pension fund, which would bring this year’s pension contribu-tion to $759 million, and $225 million more for property tax re-bates. The Democrats’ plan doesn’t include ei-ther of those changes.
Christie’s $29.6 billion budget plan announced in May came before the Supreme Court ordered the additional Abbott spending; Christie hasn’t formally unveiled a spending plan with that money but said he’ll comply with the or-der.
Christie’s budget plan doesn’t include a pay-ment into the pension fund, which is legally required for fiscal 2012, because the gov-ernor has pledged to make it this week, be-fore the new budget year begins. Doing so would enable him to say spending is being cut in fiscal 2012; otherwise, it would rise.
The revenue totals cer-tified Friday by Christie include a larger start-of-the-year surplus than had been announced in May and appear to pro-vide an additional $291 million cushion.
The deadline to enact a state budget is Thurs-day.
Michael Symons: 609-984-4336; msy-mons@njpressme-dia.com
Star Ledger - N.J. Legislature to hold budget hearings with deadline nearing
Published: Monday, June 27, 2011, 6:58 AM Updated: Monday, June 27, 2011, 7:15 AM
TRENTON — Lawmakers in the New Jersey Assembly and Senate will get to work this week on a state spending plan — just four days before the current budget runs out.
Hearings get under way in both houses today, with final votes on budget bills set for Thursday.
Republican Gov. Chris Christie proposed a $29.6 billion budget, but Democrats have drafted their own $30 billion version.
And there's plenty that they disagree about.
For starters, Christie says the state won't take in enough revenue to finance the Democrats' plan. But Democrats want to reinstate a surcharge on millionaires to help cover increased aid to schools and seniors who own homes.
A balanced budget must be in place by July 1, or the state technically runs out of money and government shuts down.
Daily Journal - Unions face long, hard fight in N.J.
Jun 27, 2011 |
ByJASON METHOD
Near the end of the boisterous rally in front of the state capitol last Thursday, labor leader and Democratic Assemblyman Thomas P. Giblin issued a warning as he stood in front of 8,500 teachers, police officers and state workers.
The impending vote onpensionsand health benefit reform, Giblin said, was not the last battle. He spoke about proposed legislation on teacher tenure and charter schools. He expressed worries about local government contracts.
"The fight has just begun," yelled Giblin, 64, a former Democratic Party chairman. "This is a battle for your families, for your future!"
The state's government worker unions, once considered nearly politically invincible, lost what they had termed was the "Second Battle of Trenton" last week when the Legislature passed a bill that would treat public workers much like private workers have been treated for the past two decades -- with workers paying more for retirement and health benefits.
Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican who had sought even tougher reforms, is expected to sign the measure into law Tuesday.
Staggered union leaders have settled in for what they say will be a long, hard fight.
"I want to be realistic," said Vincent Giordano, executive director of the state's largest teacher union, the New Jersey Education Association. "This is a setback. This was not a result we were seeking."
But while unions cast the new war as a battle against Christie, enemy Democratic bosses or a misinformed public, a top labor economist says public unions are now under the same global economic and technological pressures as everyone else.
"We are going to see more battles like this," John Donahue of Harvard University said. "The big picture history is going to record of this period is that we lost the middle class in the private sector in the 1980s and 1990s, and it is politically unsustainable to have a middle-class public sector and not a middle-class private sector."
Government workers will likely see a long-term loss of pay and benefits, Donahue added.
"Government can't be a middle-class island in a divided world," said Donahue, who served in President Bill Clinton's Labor Department. "I take no pleasure in saying that, but you can't sustain it."
The battlegrounds for New Jersey already have been determined for the next year.
First up for the unions will be the Communication Workers of America state contract negotiations with Christie.
The governor's offer included a 3.5 percent pay cut, says the CWA, which represents some 40,000 state workers.
Christie appears to hold a strong position: He can impose a contract after an arbitration and fact-finding process. Meanwhile, state workers don't have the right to strike. Their contract ends June 30.
Later this fall, as Giblin said, the same Republican-Democrat alliance that passed thepensionand benefit reforms is expected to look at passing changes to teacher tenure and expanding alternatives to public schools.
If passed, more will be expected of teachers, and their long-standing tenure rights -- considered a near virtual contract for lifetime job security -- will be trimmed. Meanwhile, traditional public schools may find their dominance challenged by charter and private schools.
Thepensionand benefit struggles aren't over, either. Union leaders say they'll challenge the reforms in court, as unions and retirees in other states already have.
The planned freeze of annual cost-of-living adjustments for retirees is expected to be most vulnerable to a court challenge, because courts have ruledpensionsa contractual obligation of the state. But other provisions may be challenged as well.
Giordano, of the NJEA, said lawyers are considering whether it was legal for Democrats to joinpensionand benefit reform together in one bill.
"Do they have enough in common?" Giordano said. "We'll see if the whole thing was improper to begin with."
Then there are the legislative elections in November, with all 120 seats up for grabs. The unions are in a difficult spot: To defeat Democrats who voted against them could give more seats to Republicans, who probably would be even less cooperative with unions.
But union leaders say it's more important to take on two high-profile Democrats: South Jersey powerbroker George Norcross III and Essex County Executive Joseph N. DiVincenzo Jr., who union leaders say hold sway over a bloc of legislators.
"You can't look at those Democrats who voted in favor of this bill as individuals; you have to see them as controlled," CWA state director Hetty Rosenstein said. "We think that kind of boss politics is failing New Jersey. That's part of what we're assessing here as we go forward."
Rosenstein and other union leaders also said they understood the plight of the private-sector middle class. Nonetheless, that shows the need for union power, she said.
"The cause of the loss of the middle class in the private sector is the destruction of organized labor in the private sector," Rosenstein said. "So the answer is not to destroy organized labor and collective bargaining in the public sector."
Bob Master, a CWA director, believes the New Jersey labor strife is part of a worldwide global struggle.
"There is, literally, a global assault on the living standards of working people," Master said. "It's happening in Greece, in Portugal, it's everywhere. And the mantra is, 'We cannot afford a middle class, we can't afford a Medicare, we can't afford a Social Security, and we can't afford what was done in the New Deal.' Yet, in the U.S., we have seen this huge transfer of wealth to the top of the scale. You have to put it in this context."
Ben Dworkin, a Rider University political scientist, predicted the union fight will continue, probably more focused on grass-roots efforts aimed at changing public opinion. But for now, he said, unions don't have public sympathy on their side.
"The public sector unions are not going to disappear next week. They have a lot of members and an ability to have an influence on politics," Dworkin said. "(But) the general public has accepted the governor's view of the world. ... The numbers don't add up for the public unions right now."
Njspotlight.com - Package of Four Controversial Charter Bills To Come Before Assembly
The most contentious proposal would give local voters the right to OK any charters in their community.
, June 27 in Education|Post a Comment
Charter school policy will get one last look this week before the legislature heads off for summer, with the Assembly expected to take up a package of proposals that could change how the schools are approved and monitored.
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Whether the Senate will consider the measures as quickly -- let alone approve any or all of them -- is far less certain.
The Assembly budget committee is expected to hear two controversial bills today. One would allow certain parochial and private schools to be converted into publicly funded charters.
The other bill would expand the number of outside organizations that could review, approve and oversee charters. Now, just the state Department of Education (DOE) has that role, called an authorizer.
In addition, two charter bills already approved in committee are headed to vote in the full Assembly on Thursday. These include the most controversial measure of all: a bill to give local voters a binding say on whether a charter school could open in a community.
The other would strengthen some of the accountability rules affecting charters, including tighter requirements for tracking the mix of students at a school.
Four in One
State Assemblyman Patrick Diegnan Jr. (D-Middlesex), chairman of the Assembly’s education committee, said this weekend that he wanted to move all four bills as one package.
Diegnan has been critical of Gov. Chris Christie’s aggressive push for charter schools and sponsored the local vote measure, a proposal that Christie’s education commissioner, Chris Cerf, has staunchly opposed.
Diegnan said in an interview that the bills taken together serve a purpose in allowing charter schools to grow, but with significant checks.
"Charter schools are a possible solution in the places that need them, but they are not in those that don’t need them," he said. "This package of bill addresses that, and I believe has bipartisan support."
He also predicted that all four bills could pass easily in the Assembly, although he made no such predictions for the Senate. "I have a tough enough time counting the Assembly,' he said.
Other Assembly members weren’t so sure, either, saying even the less controversial of the bills was a long shot to get posted for vote in the Senate before the summer break. That leaves the legislation unlikely to be taken up before the November election, and instead headed toward the legislature’s "lame duck" session afterward.
State Assemblywoman Mila Jasey (D-Essex) sponsored the authorizer bill that has several similar provisions to a Senate version sponsored by state Sen. Teresa Ruiz (D-Essex), the Senate education committee chairwoman. But the Senate bill has not moved since approved by Ruiz’s committee earlier this spring, making final passage this week unlikely.
"I haven’t heard anything from Senator Ruiz, so I’m not sure this is going anywhere [beyond the Assembly],” Jasey said. "Still, we could move it and then we’ll just wait for the lame duck session."
Jasey and Diegnan said changes have been made to the conversion bill to try to win passage. One amendment would only allow the conversion of non-public schools that have proven academic success and are located in low-performing public school districts.
"This is only to bail out a school that is closing for financial reasons," said Jasey. "I see it as being very limited, with in all likelihood these students coming into the public schools anyway."
The Record - Budget cuts create education exodus
Monday, June 27, 2011 Last updated: Monday June 27, 2011, 6:56 AM
BY LESLIE BRODY AND DAVE SHEINGOLD
STAFF WRITERS
Newly released state data show that when public schools opened last September, there were about 4,700 fewer teachers in classrooms and 600 fewer administrators statewide than the year before.
That includes all the lost positions, whether employees quit, retired or were dismissed to save money. The new data clarify the toll of last year's budget woes: It has long been unclear exactly how many jobs in teaching and administration vanished last year, a time of unusually deep state aid cuts and heated rhetoric about the costs and quality of New Jersey schools.
From 2009-10 to 2010-11, the number of full- and part-time public school teachers dropped by 4 percent, to 110,972, while administrators declined by 7 percent, to 8,515, to hit the smallest numbers in six years.
Many educators complained the staff cuts hurt course offerings, boosted class sizes and, in some cases, gave remaining teachers more work than they could handle. The Christie administration countered that spending had to be trimmed last year due to the severe recession, loss of federal stimulus funds and the need to curb soaring property taxes. Some researchers, meanwhile, argued against alarm, saying that a teacher's effectiveness is more important for spurring student learning than having a small class.
Frank Belluscio, spokesman for the New Jersey School Boards Association, predicted this fall would see further staff cuts and growing class sizes, but to a lesser extent than last year.
"We're still in a downsizing mode," he said. "Until the economy turns around I don't see a reversal."
Many districts are exploring proposals to share administrators or outsource non-instructional services. "Districts will look anywhere before they cut back on teaching staff," he said.
Counting the full range of certified staff — such as guidance counselors, reading specialists and nurses — the number of certified school employees dropped to 137,627 last year, from 144,084 the year before. Their total salaries fell $257 million to $9.66 billion in the past school year. That decline marked the first such drop in at least a decade. The total paid for their salaries had risen yearly through the 2000s, usually by more than 3 percent.
The state's list of certified staff also details who left: a disproportionate number of rookies, due largely to seniority rules that guide layoffs. According to an analysis by The Record, the number of full-time teachers with one to five years of experience fell 14 percent, to 24,894 statewide. The number of teachers in their first year dipped 32 percent, to 2,399 last year, due largely to hiring freezes.
Last week, the U.S. Conference of Mayors called for an end to "last in, first out" as a primary criterion for layoffs during budget cuts, and said teachers judged most effective should be retained. Governor Christie also wants to weaken seniority rules, but teachers unions counter that those protections bar districts from firing veterans to save money.
Many longtime teachers also decided to retire last summer over concern that their benefits might be reduced. The ranks of teachers with more than 30 years of experience fell 18 percent, to 7,314 last year.
North Jersey reflected the statewide trends. In Bergen and Passaic counties combined, school districts had 3.1 percent fewer teachers and 5 percent fewer administrators in 2010-11 than the year before. The sum paid for salaries of all certified staff dropped 2 percent.
In North Jersey, the biggest salary savings, by percentage, came in the Englewood Cliffs, Becton Regional High School and Bogota districts. Bogota lost almost 10 percent of its teachers, mostly through layoffs.
Bogota Superintendent Letizia Pantoliano said reducing staff to such an extent is "always going to have an impact on some way on student learning." Cutting two high school math teachers increased class size, for example.
"There were lots of outcries among teachers," she said. "When you eliminate staff we're not eliminating students, so the work just shifts and they don't feel they can do the work. I'm hoping next year will be a more stable situation."
The state data show a slightly smaller reduction in the teaching force than estimates by the state's largest teacher's union, the New Jersey Education Association, which had used membership rolls to project there were about 5,500 fewer teachers in the classroom this year than last.
NJEA spokesman Steve Baker said the union's estimate for teachers was "not that far out of line." He said the smaller teaching force meant many students received less individual attention, and in some districts lost classes in art, music and foreign languages. "When you lose 4,700 teachers the impact on students is undeniable," he said. "It's serious and detrimental."
E-mail: brody@northjersey.com and sheingold@northjersey.com
