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The Associated Press 'Sixty-one N.J.-funded special ed officials' (at private provider schools)salaries exceed proposed $175K cap'
The Record ‘Pay hikes for public school teachers are dropping, statistics show’
Star Ledger ‘Pay raises for new N.J. teachers contracts are smallest in at least 30 years’
Njspotlight.com ‘Teachers Union Looks to Go on Offense’
The Record ‘Pay hikes for public school teachers are dropping, statistics show’
Thursday, August 12, 2010
BY PATRICIA ALEX
Pay hikes for public school teachers are dropping as new contracts are negotiated, with some annual increases falling below 2 percent, according to statistics released by the New Jersey School Boards Association on Thursday.
Annual raises averaged 2.03 percent in the 75 teacher contracts for 2010-2011 that were settled since January, the group reported. It fell even further, to 1.58 percent, between April and June – at the height of the state budget crisis when the governor slashed school aid and called on teachers unions to take one-year pay freezes.
Only about 42 of the more than 600 teacher bargaining units statewide agreed to one-year wage freezes – including Englewood, Glen Rock, Midland Park, Old Tappan and Montvale, the NJSBA said.
But the recently settled contracts seem to indicate an overall trend toward lower increases for this year. The new average, which factors in contracts with freezes, hovers around 2 percent. That compares with average raises of 4.3 percent for contracts settled the 2009-2010 school year, according to the NJSBA data.
“It’s no surprise that pay increases of 4 and 5 percent year after year — that taxpayers made clear in the April school elections they can no longer afford – are fast on their way to becoming a thing of the past,” said Michael Drewniak, spokesman for Governor Christie, who added his boss’s efforts to cap salaries and property taxes “are having a real impact around the state.”
“The economic realities have kicked in and the recession is continuing,” said Frank Belluscio, of the school boards group. Those realities included thousands of pink slips sent to teachers statewide this year as districts grappled with aid cuts.
In some cases, unions took freezes in the hopes that jobs would be saved. More than 40 of the new contracts also call for other concessions like higher health care co-pays and less tuition reimbursement. When administrators and support staff are included, there were 140 districts statewide in which staff agreed to concessions and/or freezes, the school boards group said.
The new teacher increase averages are the lowest since the NJSBA began collecting data 30 years ago. It is expected the average teacher pay might decline as well, as more veterans at the top of scale have opted to retire this year rather than deal with district cutbacks and the possibility of pension changes.
Steve Baker, spokesman for the state teachers union, said the lower increases show that market pressures work, and make state caps unnecessary. As part of his “tool kit” to control spending and rein in property taxes, Governor Christie has proposed legislation that would cap all school contractual increases to 2.5 percent, inclusive of benefit costs.
“This just reiterates what we have maintained for a long time, that contract settlements respond to the economy. It’s why were are opposed to caps,” said Baker. “These figures show that salaries are not spiraling out of control.”
There has been more willingness to budge on salaries and benefits in some negotiations. Cresskill, for instance, reopened a settled contract and agreed to an increase of 2.4 percent in 2011-12 after a 4.5 percent bump this year. The union also gave up an allotment for tuition reimbursement in 2011-12, according to the school boards association.
Still, more than 150 school districts where contracts expired in June have yet to settle, according to the school boards association.
“They are more willing to listen, but it’s still an ongoing process,” said Ringwood Trustee Joe Walker. “I think there is a little more flexibility but we’re still at an impasse.”
E-mail: alex@northjersey.com
Pay hikes for public school teachers are dropping as new contracts are negotiated, with some annual increases falling below 2 percent, according to statistics released by the New Jersey School Boards Association on Thursday.
Annual raises averaged 2.03 percent in the 75 teacher contracts for 2010-2011 that were settled since January, the group reported. It fell even further, to 1.58 percent, between April and June – at the height of the state budget crisis when the governor slashed school aid and called on teachers unions to take one-year pay freezes.
Only about 42 of the more than 600 teacher bargaining units statewide agreed to one-year wage freezes – including Englewood, Glen Rock, Midland Park, Old Tappan and Montvale, the NJSBA said.
But the recently settled contracts seem to indicate an overall trend toward lower increases for this year. The new average, which factors in contracts with freezes, hovers around 2 percent. That compares with average raises of 4.3 percent for contracts settled the 2009-2010 school year, according to the NJSBA data.
“It’s no surprise that pay increases of 4 and 5 percent year after year — that taxpayers made clear in the April school elections they can no longer afford – are fast on their way to becoming a thing of the past,” said Michael Drewniak, spokesman for Governor Christie, who added his boss’s efforts to cap salaries and property taxes “are having a real impact around the state.”
“The economic realities have kicked in and the recession is continuing,” said Frank Belluscio, of the school boards group. Those realities included thousands of pink slips sent to teachers statewide this year as districts grappled with aid cuts.
In some cases, unions took freezes in the hopes that jobs would be saved. More than 40 of the new contracts also call for other concessions like higher health care co-pays and less tuition reimbursement. When administrators and support staff are included, there were 140 districts statewide in which staff agreed to concessions and/or freezes, the school boards group said.
The new teacher increase averages are the lowest since the NJSBA began collecting data 30 years ago. It is expected the average teacher pay might decline as well, as more veterans at the top of scale have opted to retire this year rather than deal with district cutbacks and the possibility of pension changes.
Steve Baker, spokesman for the state teachers union, said the lower increases show that market pressures work, and make state caps unnecessary. As part of his “tool kit” to control spending and rein in property taxes, Governor Christie has proposed legislation that would cap all school contractual increases to 2.5 percent, inclusive of benefit costs.
“This just reiterates what we have maintained for a long time, that contract settlements respond to the economy. It’s why were are opposed to caps,” said Baker. “These figures show that salaries are not spiraling out of control.”
There has been more willingness to budge on salaries and benefits in some negotiations. Cresskill, for instance, reopened a settled contract and agreed to an increase of 2.4 percent in 2011-12 after a 4.5 percent bump this year. The union also gave up an allotment for tuition reimbursement in 2011-12, according to the school boards association.
Still, more than 150 school districts where contracts expired in June have yet to settle, according to the school boards association.
“They are more willing to listen, but it’s still an ongoing process,” said Ringwood Trustee Joe Walker. “I think there is a little more flexibility but we’re still at an impasse.”
E-mail: alex@northjersey.com
Star Ledger ‘Pay raises for new N.J. teachers contracts are smallest in at least 30 years’
Published: Friday, August 13, 2010, 6:00 AM Updated: Friday, August 13, 2010, 8:00 AM
Lisa Fleisher/Statehouse Bureau
TRENTON — As Gov. Chris Christie campaigned against teacher raises during his first six months in office, unions and school districts agreed to the lowest pay hikes in more than three decades, according to a survey released Thursday by the New Jersey School Boards Association.
Teachers in 75 districts who settled contracts in the first half of the year will see an average raise of 2.03 percent for the 2010-11 school year, the association said. That’s the lowest pay increase in the more than 30 years the group has kept track — and doesn’t include an additional 18 districts that broke into contracts to freeze salaries.
Association spokesman Frank Belluscio said the chief factor was the $1.3 billion in state education aid cut since January, leaving many districts faced with a choice: cut pay or see colleagues fired and positions frozen.
"We united to save jobs," said Susan Sawey, president of the Sparta Education Association, which agreed to a one-year freeze. "That was our main goal."
Jobs were also at the forefront when the West Essex school board got teachers, administrators and even custodians that had another year left on their contract to take a pay freeze, board president Phyllis Helmstetter said.
"We were very, very up front with all of the unions about that," she said. "We explained to them we would have no choice. Cuts would have to be made. They were looking out for each other."
The 55 contracts settled from April to June included even smaller raises — an average of 1.58 percent.
Contracts in the second half of 2009 were still being settled with average wage hikes above 4 percent. Such raises are "fast on their way to becoming a thing of the past," Christie spokesman Michael Drewniak said. "Gov. Christie’s efforts to effect this change — including his call for a one-year salary freeze and passage of a 2 percent hard cap on property taxes — are having a real impact around the state."
Christie brought the issue of teacher salaries into the spotlight this spring and urged voters to reject school budgets in districts where teachers refused to freeze their pay. Budgets were defeated in 58 percent of districts.
The majority of districts did not see concessions. Employees in at least 210 of the state’s more than 600 school districts agreed to pay freezes or cuts, including teachers in 68 districts, according to the state Department of Education.
The New Jersey Education Association teachers union estimates 10,000 teaching jobs will be lost as districts decide not to replace retiring teachers or order layoffs. The union says a statewide wage freeze would not make up for state budget cuts.
NJEA spokesman Steve Wollmer said the reduced raises show the current bargaining process works. "These settlements that are coming down in this point in time are much lower than they’ve traditionally been," he said.
Christie has proposed several reforms to the bargaining process for public workers, including one that would allow school districts to institute a "last, best offer" in some cases.
Teachers hope a $268 million infusion of federal aid for New Jersey approved earlier this week will mean teachers will be rehired — or be able to reinstitute raises they gave up to save jobs.
Njspotlight.com ‘Teachers Union Looks to Go on Offense’
At annual NJEA conference, the main focus is on how to fight back politically
The name of the summer workshop spoke volumes about the sense inside the New Jersey Education Association these days: “In Enemy Territory -- Defending Your Rights in a Hostile Political Climate.”
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Such is life for the state’s largest teachers union going into the new school year, as district spending is trimmed, labor contracts are shrunk, and a new governor jabs at the union nearly every chance he can get.
So as nearly 2,000 of its local and state leaders met this week for the NJEA’s annual summer leadership conference in East Brunswick, it was no wonder that a session on how to fight back politically was a big draw.
“We usually have to beg people people to come to do the politics stuff,” said Wayne Dibofsky, a NJEA lobbyist, scanning a list of 150 registrants. “One year, we offered scholarships. Not this year, though. No, not this year.”
Considering Contracts
It’s not just politics that the union has to worry about, and over the course of the week, the NJEA has held workshops for everything from grievance processing to family involvement training to, of course, collective bargaining.
The timing of the last is good, as the New Jersey School Boards Association yesterday released its latest survey of teacher contract settlements, which showed a trend toward the lowest average salary increases since the group started tracking 30 years ago.
Since January, 75 contracts settled for the coming school year have averaged 2.03 percent increases, the association said, and those settled since April averaged 1.58 percent. Last year, the average increase was 4.31 percent.
Among the settled agreements, 24 of the new contracts have included full or partial salary freezes with their teachers. Another 18 districts reopened contracts to negotiate freezes, the association said.
Advancing New Ideas
This all comes at a tenuous time for the 200,000-member teachers union, as it builds a political strategy to combat not only Gov. Chris Christie’s broadsides, but also a broader agenda of school reforms that a few years ago would have been an anathema to the union.
Expansion of charter schools, changes to teacher tenure, and new systems of merit pay are just some of the fall’s expected topics of conversation, especially if New Jersey is chosen among the winners of federal Race to the Top grants.
NJEA leaders said they are working not only to respond, but also to put forward some ideas of their own.
It may start as soon as next week, when the Senate takes up a measure that would allow Rutgers University to be an authorizer of charter schools, potentially opening the way for quicker approvals and more schools.
It’s a move backed by Christie and his education commissioner, Bret Schundler, who will also scheduled to speak at the education committee hearing on Monday.
“With all these bills, instead of just saying ‘no,’ we have to ask what can we do to make them better,” Ginger Gold Schnitzer, the NJEA’s top lobbyist, said yesterday. “What can we propose on our own that will help change the conversation?”
Schnitzer said the NJEA is working on several tracks, including its own strategies for what it calls “priority schools” that are chronically under-performing and “experienced teacher corps” to work in struggling schools.
It has a plan for tenure reform, too, that Schnitzer said is “still under wraps,” but that puts a big focus on improving the teacher evaluation system.
Exerting Influence
And that doesn’t count all the minutia that went into the political workshop held this week, much of it focused on how to address local concerns as well as statewide ones.
Each participant was handed an inch-thick binder on how to target voters and even predict voter turnout, no small thing in school elections where the average turnout rate is in the teens.
They heard from members of the media, community organizers, and some of the legislators they hope to influence, including Assemblywoman Linda Greenstein (D-Mercer) and U.S Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-NJ), both running for reelection.
(Full disclosure: The author of this article spoke on one of the panels.)
Among the attendees was Steve Santucci, a history teacher from Mendham, who said the sessions are important for the local leaders to come together and help hone the message for these challenging times. And he said this year’s certainly appeared the most crowded yet.
“It gets us to connect with the other unions out there,” he said, “and to remind us that we’re not all islands in this.”
The Associated Press 'Sixty-one N.J.-funded special ed officials' salaries exceed proposed $175K cap'
Updated: Thursday, August 12, 2010, 6:01 PM
TRENTON — It's not clear whether salary caps that Gov. Chris Christie wants for New Jersey's school superintendents would apply to private schools funded with tax dollars.
An analysis by The Record newspaper found more than 60 administrators for the state's 171 private special education schools earn more than the $175,000 cap.
None of the state's special education private schools had more than 460 students last year.
Education Department spokesman Alan Guenther said the rules still are being drafted and will be presented in September, but the governor's spokesman indicated that the cap should be consistent for all state-paid school administrator salaries.
Pay levels at special private schools are controlled by the state because most of the money the schools make is from tuition paid by the public schools that send students.
PREVIOUS COVERAGE:
• The Record: Private school CEOs earn well above proposed cap
• Superintendent salary cap has bigger impact in northern, central N.J. districts
• Star-Ledger Editorial Board: Tax cap makes cutting special education costs an urgent task
• N.J. school districts avoid cuts in special education in budget crisis
• Jersey City schools chief exempt from Christie's proposed salary caps
• Gov. Christie proposes superintendent salary cuts, merit-based bonuses
• N.J. education chief says pension proposals could prompt fewer than 13,000 teachers to retire early
• Gov. Christie to propose permanent caps on salary raises for public workersFor the 2009-10 school year, the state Education Department capped compensation for administrators at private special education schools at $215,000 no matter how many students there were.
"I don't know how we could justify salaries of $215,000 or more for superintendents or CEOs of schools with 500 or less students, even considering those are special needs students. Not when we're applying a salary cap significantly lower for superintendents supervising public school districts with multiples of that number of students," said Christie spokesman Michael Drewniak.
According to The Record, the state could save nearly $2 million in tuition if the cap is applied to the private schools.
Gerard Thiers, executive director of the Association of Schools and Agencies for the Handicapped, said the schools are adhering to the cap that is in place. He said most special education school chiefs earn $150,000 on average, according to a recent survey.
"Special education by its nature is very expensive," Thiers said, adding that private schools directors also have additional tasks that traditional superintendents might not, such as fundraising and negotiating with vendors.
At the Institute for Educational Achievement in New Milford, a nonprofit school for children with autism, executive director Dawn B. Townsend was paid nearly $199,000 last year — a year when IEA accepted 28 students.
A message left for Townsend by the Associated Press today was not immediately returned.
ECLC of New Jersey, which has special education schools in Chatham and Ho-Ho-Kus, taught 333 students last year; its adult programs served dozens more.
Executive director Bruce Litinger made $222,959 and was allowed to exceed the cap because he oversaw the non-school programs.
with it," said ECLC business manager Jean Earle.
Litinger was on vacation today, and other ECLC school officials did not immediately return calls for comment from The AP.
The governor makes $175,000 a year. In July, he proposed limiting pay for school superintendents and other administrators to a maximum of $175,000 based on district size. There must be at least 10,000 students in the district for a superintendent to be paid that much.
The top salary for a district with fewer than 250 students would be $120,000 for the superintendent.
According to the governor's office, the proposal would mean pay cuts for 366 public superintendents at the end of their contracts, saving school districts $9.8 million.
