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The Record, 7-24-10, ‘NJ governor speeds up salary cap for school district chiefs’ (GSCS quoted)
Njspotlight.com ‘Cap on Superintendent Salaries Could Be in Place Soon’ Schundler tells county officials to start imposing new limits immediately
GSCS Take: GSCS's prime mission is for high quality public education for New Jersey's students. The abruptness of these policy changes, lack of public input and public analyses of their consequences, however, is a great worry to our members, our parents.
http://www.northjersey.com/news/99159994_Christie_wants_cap_on_school_chiefs__pay_now.html
The Record, 7-24-10, ‘NJ governor speeds up salary cap for school district chiefs’
Saturday, July 24, 2010 BY LESLIE BRODY
The Christie administration is worried that school district chiefs will try to skirt a new salary cap by extending their old contracts.
Education Commissioner Bret Schundler told county superintendents to start imposing the cap on new contracts now rather than waiting until the new rules are formally in place.
Last week the governor announced that to curb "exorbitant" wages and save taxpayers’ money, no district superintendents should make more than his own $175,000 salary, unless they work in the biggest cities or earn bonuses. Christie said the cap would take effect for superintendents when their individual contracts expired, and the Education Department specified that the cap would be imposed after three public hearings, perhaps as soon as December.
The proposal infuriated many school leaders, who said it would lead to an exodus of talent and called for more time for debate. The administration, however, has sped up the plan instead.
At a Wednesday meeting, county superintendents told the commissioner they had heard that some district leaders wanted to prolong their current contracts to avoid the looming caps, education spokesman Alan Guenther said Friday. He said the commissioner was concerned about that possibility and told county superintendents to prevent it by imposing the cap on any new contracts now. There is no plan to impose it on unexpired contracts.
"We announced the new cap to restore order and rationality to the pay scale for administrators," Guenther said. "County superintendents will exercise their authority to review contracts and to reject contracts that try to circumvent efforts to control spending."
Some educators and advocates were upset by the news and questioned the administration’s legal authority to change regulations before public input.
"To start it before you even adjusted the code to reflect the new policy seems inappropriate, confusing to folks and destabilizing for leadership," said Lynne Strickland, executive director of the Garden State Coalition of Schools. "There are some important technical questions … but it’s getting rammed through."
"I don’t think you can make rules through a press conference," echoed Richard Bozza, executive director of the New Jersey Association of School Administrators. "Our position is there is no cap until the rules are in place" through the standard process, which includes public testimony.
Guenther, the Education Department spokesman, said he had no proof that any particular district chief was trying to game the system by extending a contract. He added that the cap would not be imposed on a contract that was negotiated recently and already in the final stages of review by a county superintendent.
According to Christie’s office, 70 percent of superintendents statewide earn more than the salary cap, which would save taxpayers $9.8 million yearly. The cap would limit superintendent pay by student enrollment; chiefs of districts with 250 children, for example, could not make a base salary exceeding $120,000. The plan also included options for annual merit bonuses worth up to 15 percent of pay.
Many superintendents were upset and demoralized by Christie’s plan, saying it undermined local control. They also noted the caps didn’t take into account a superintendent’s length of service or advanced degrees and didn’t apply to such highly paid public employees as police chiefs, university officials and the Rutgers University football coach.
The Christie administration "is making us feel like criminals and that’s not fair," said Terrance Brennan, Pompton Lakes school superintendent, who makes about $197,000 in his 37th year as an educator. "We’ve spent many dedicated years taking care of children. To be treated this way at the end of our careers is wrong. We didn’t create this situation."
Christie’s office argued that, on average, superintendent salaries have grown nearly 46 percent since 2001 — well beyond the rate of inflation and more than overall education spending. The governor said it was unfair to make taxpayers who have lost jobs and homes pay for such growing paychecks. School boards say they must outbid each other to recruit good superintendents who have contracts of three-to-five years instead of tenure.
Brennan, who is retiring in June, said it would be hard to find a quality replacement under the new cap of $165,000 for his district of 1,750 children. "If you’re a principal, why would you give up tenure to take a superintendency for so little pay?" he asked.
Some superintendents have said they might move to avoid the cap. In New York, for example, many suburban superintendents earn more than Christie. School chiefs make $244,000 in Ardsley, $255,000 in Chappaqua and $215,000 in Cold Spring Harbor.
E-mail: brody@northjersey.com
The Christie administration is worried that school district chiefs will try to skirt a new salary cap by extending their old contracts.
Education Commissioner Bret Schundler told county superintendents to start imposing the cap on new contracts now rather than waiting until the new rules are formally in place.
Last week the governor announced that to curb "exorbitant" wages and save taxpayers’ money, no district superintendents should make more than his own $175,000 salary, unless they work in the biggest cities or earn bonuses. Christie said the cap would take effect for superintendents when their individual contracts expired, and the Education Department specified that the cap would be imposed after three public hearings, perhaps as soon as December.
The proposal infuriated many school leaders, who said it would lead to an exodus of talent and called for more time for debate. The administration, however, has sped up the plan instead.
At a Wednesday meeting, county superintendents told the commissioner they had heard that some district leaders wanted to prolong their current contracts to avoid the looming caps, education spokesman Alan Guenther said Friday. He said the commissioner was concerned about that possibility and told county superintendents to prevent it by imposing the cap on any new contracts now. There is no plan to impose it on unexpired contracts.
"We announced the new cap to restore order and rationality to the pay scale for administrators," Guenther said. "County superintendents will exercise their authority to review contracts and to reject contracts that try to circumvent efforts to control spending."
Some educators and advocates were upset by the news and questioned the administration’s legal authority to change regulations before public input.
"To start it before you even adjusted the code to reflect the new policy seems inappropriate, confusing to folks and destabilizing for leadership," said Lynne Strickland, executive director of the Garden State Coalition of Schools. "There are some important technical questions … but it’s getting rammed through."
"I don’t think you can make rules through a press conference," echoed Richard Bozza, executive director of the New Jersey Association of School Administrators. "Our position is there is no cap until the rules are in place" through the standard process, which includes public testimony.
Guenther, the Education Department spokesman, said he had no proof that any particular district chief was trying to game the system by extending a contract. He added that the cap would not be imposed on a contract that was negotiated recently and already in the final stages of review by a county superintendent.
According to Christie’s office, 70 percent of superintendents statewide earn more than the salary cap, which would save taxpayers $9.8 million yearly. The cap would limit superintendent pay by student enrollment; chiefs of districts with 250 children, for example, could not make a base salary exceeding $120,000. The plan also included options for annual merit bonuses worth up to 15 percent of pay.
Many superintendents were upset and demoralized by Christie’s plan, saying it undermined local control. They also noted the caps didn’t take into account a superintendent’s length of service or advanced degrees and didn’t apply to such highly paid public employees as police chiefs, university officials and the Rutgers University football coach.
The Christie administration "is making us feel like criminals and that’s not fair," said Terrance Brennan, Pompton Lakes school superintendent, who makes about $197,000 in his 37th year as an educator. "We’ve spent many dedicated years taking care of children. To be treated this way at the end of our careers is wrong. We didn’t create this situation."
Christie’s office argued that, on average, superintendent salaries have grown nearly 46 percent since 2001 — well beyond the rate of inflation and more than overall education spending. The governor said it was unfair to make taxpayers who have lost jobs and homes pay for such growing paychecks. School boards say they must outbid each other to recruit good superintendents who have contracts of three-to-five years instead of tenure.
Brennan, who is retiring in June, said it would be hard to find a quality replacement under the new cap of $165,000 for his district of 1,750 children. "If you’re a principal, why would you give up tenure to take a superintendency for so little pay?" he asked.
Some superintendents have said they might move to avoid the cap. In New York, for example, many suburban superintendents earn more than Christie. School chiefs make $244,000 in Ardsley, $255,000 in Chappaqua and $215,000 in Cold Spring Harbor.
E-mail: brody@northjersey.com
Njspotlight.com ‘Cap on Superintendent Salaries Could Be in Place Soon’
Schundler tells county officials to start imposing new limits immediately - NJSPOTLIGHT.COM
By John Mooney, July 23 in Education |Just a week after Gov. Chris Christie announced a plan to put new limits on school superintendent pay, the caps may be in place even sooner than most expected.
Related Links
Christie Salary Caps
Another Cap from Christie, This Time for School Superintendents
A spokesman for state Education Commissioner Bret Schundler confirmed yesterday that Schundler told his top county officials this week that they should begin to impose the new limits immediately.
Some discretion would be provided for those new contracts already in the pipeline, said spokesman Alan Guenther, but the aim is to prevent any superintendents from trying to extend existing deals or negotiate new ones before the new limits are formally put in place.
“New contracts will be subjected to the new caps,” Guenther said. “The commissioner will not permit a last-minute wave of negotiations aimed at circumventing these new caps.”
As news spread of the edict, expected to be a formal memo released in the next few days, Schundler may already have a challenge on his hands.
The head of the state’s superintendents association last night questioned whether Schundler has such authority, saying the law requires the new rules to be still subject to public review.
“If that is indeed the case, we have a great concern that the regulations proposed would be superseding those now in place,” said Richard Bozza, executive director of the New Jersey Association of School Administrators.
Bozza said the specific guidelines have yet to even be published, let alone enacted, and he pointed to Schundler’s own press release last week that said there would be three public hearings before adoption in December.
“We understand the Governor and the commissioner have an incredible amount of authority, but that doesn’t excuse them from abiding by the law,” he said.
Christie and Schundler rocked the education establishment last week when they announced some of the nation’s toughest restrictions on pay for school superintendents, setting limits up to $175,000 -- the same as the governor’s own salary -- depending on the size of the district.
Superintendent salaries now average about $163,000, but go well over $200,000 in scores of districts, large and small, according to state data. By the state’s own accounting, the new limits could effectively lead to pay cuts for 70 percent of school chiefs once their existing contracts are up.
In northern New Jersey counties like Bergen, Essex and Union, virtually every superintendent would take a pay cut.
That superintendents will try to get under the wire is what has Schundler’s office worried, although Guenther said there were no specific cases as yet to cite.
And he stressed that contracts already under negotiation would be given some leeway, especially those of new hires in which the state’s county superintendents were already involved.
“It will somewhat depend on where they are in the process,” Guenther said. “Those negotiations under way will be honored.”
But he said the commissioner does have the authority to move ahead on pressing the limits for those new deals or extensions just now coming in, even as the guidelines themselves are yet to be fully developed.
The regulations "are all being created, but the county superintendents already have the authority to review and approve contracts,” he said.
But Bozza said that authority is under previous regulations in place and codified, not ones yet seen.
And already in court over those previous restrictions enacted by former Gov. Jon Corzine, Bozza last night said a legal challenge would come this time, too, with the first local superintendent denied a fair review of his or her under existing rules.
“That would be the basis for us to file suit against the county superintendent,” he said.
