| ||||||||||||
Njspotlight.com ‘Gov. Christie’s School Reform Toolkit, Hammering Away at Teachers’ Salaries’
Star Ledger column 9-14-10 ‘Unions putting up stiff resistance to big hammer in property tax 'tool kit' ‘
Njspotlight.com ‘Gov. Christie’s School Reform Toolkit, Hammering Away at Teachers’ Salaries’
Star Ledger column 9-14-10 ‘Unions putting up stiff resistance to big hammer in property tax 'tool kit' ‘
Njspotlight.com ‘Gov. Christie’s School Reform Toolkit, Hammering Away at Teachers’ Salaries’
The administration’s latest legislative proposal would award the state veto powers over local labor
By John Mooney, September 14 in Education |1 Comment
Call it the big hammer in Gov. Chris Christie’s proposed toolkit for schools, the one piece of his package of financial reforms that could directly affect the biggest piece of district spending: teacher salaries.
Related Links
But if its first hearing before the legislature yesterday was any indication, the proposal to give the state veto powers over local labor contracts could prove a very hard sell, with supporters and opponents lining up along mostly predictable lines.
The bill sponsored by state Sen. Joseph Kyrillos Jr. (R-Monmouth) focuses new attention on the mostly anonymous executive county superintendents, the 21 county arms of the state Department of Education.
Tremendous New Powers
The bill would give these officials, all appointed by the governor, vast new powers to oversee school operations and budgets, adding another chapter to New Jersey’s perennial debate over its decentralized system of nearly 600 school districts.
But the most significant measure within the bill enters new territory, allowing the county superintendents to review and veto local labor contracts once negotiated, a direct hit at the teacher and administrator pacts that dictate the bulk of local school spending.
The county superintendents would be able to hold contracted compensation -- salaries and benefits -- to within the new property tax cap of 2 percent, as well as set work-rule requirements on number of days and hours teachers spend with students. It would also prohibit any contracts that prevent subcontracting of services.
The bill is part of Christie’s promised package of more than 30 proposals to provide schools and municipalities a toolkit to address rising personnel costs and other expenses. The governor is expected to announce today his proposals to revamp pension and health care benefits for public employees.
In the first full legislative day since the summer recess, the labor contract proposal yesterday drew a mostly cool reception.
A Vocal Supporter
Its most outspoken supporter yesterday at the Senate budget and appropriations committee was not Kyrillos -- who did not attend this part of the hearing -- but a Democrat, state Sen. Robert Smith (D-Middlesex).
Smith mostly focused on other provisions that would also permit county superintendents to dictate sharing of services and ultimately school consolidations, although the latter would require approval by local referendums.
“If we really want to deal with property taxes in New Jersey, you have to deal with the fact we have 600 districts,” Smith said. “It’s absolute insanity.”
Yet after Smith spoke, the bill was greeted by a parade of lobbyists and advocates in opposition. First up were leaders of the state’s dominant teachers union, the New Jersey Education Association.
“It would be virtually unchecked powers to manage the finance of the every district in the state,” said Vince Giordano, the NJEA’s executive director. “It is probably the most serious blow anyone could strike to the collective bargaining process.”
At War with the Administration
Giordano, whose union has been in open battle with Christie for much of his tenure, said giving the county superintendents these powers would be “tantamount to giving it to the governor."
“I do believe we elected a governor in November, not an emperor,” he said.
But it was not just the unions in opposition. Lobbyists for the school boards association also spoke against the measure, as did other advocates for administrators.
Barbara Horl of the New Jersey School Board Association said that contract settlements have come in under 2 percent for the first time in recent memory, well down from averages exceeding 4 percent for the last several years.
“We are already accomplishing the legislative goal without the extra review,” she said. “And we’re just at the beginning.”
State Sen. Paul Sarlo (D-Bergen) said afterward that yesterday’s hearing was only a first discussion, and no vote was taken, but he conceded the bill would have a tough path to approval at this point.
“You have both the employers and the employees against it,” Sarlo said. “And also the principals who will have to administer it.”
Star Ledger column 9-14-10 ‘Unions putting up stiff resistance to big hammer in property tax 'tool kit' ‘
By Tom Moran/ The Star-Ledger
Vince Giordano, the overpaid director of the state teachers union, sat at the witness table in a Senate committee room Monday and predicted doom and destruction if the governor succeeds in changing the rules that allow New Jersey teachers to win cushy contracts.
“We elected a governor this past November, not an emperor,” Giordano said. “This is probably the most serious blow anyone could strike at the heart of the collective bargaining process. Why we are tinkering with a system that works so well is really a mystery to me.”
It was one of those moments in Trenton that leave you in a zone beyond depression: The effort to reform rules on contract talks is the hard part in the fight to contain property taxes. And the report from the front line is not encouraging.
It was easy, in a way, for legislators to endorse the 2 percent cap on property tax increases. Why not? In New Jersey, those taxes rank somewhere just below plague and pestilence in the scheme of things.
But what happens if contract talks are not reformed and unions win raises that explode the cap? It leaves school boards and mayors with little option but to impose deep layoffs, given that personnel costs make up the bulk of their budgets.
Which brings us to Monday’s hearing. Sen. Joe Kyrillos, the governor’s point man, proposed a bill that would essentially allow the governor to veto contracts that bust the cap. It does so by giving county superintendents, who are creatures of the governor’s office, the power to kill those contracts before they take effect.
This is by far the most important tool in the governor’s “tool kit” of measures aimed at containing local costs.
But on Monday, the education establishment came out in force to oppose the bill. Not just Giordano. The School Boards Association objected on home-rule grounds, saying these decisions should be local. The Principals and Supervisors Association weighed in as well.
And none of the senators pushed back by pointing out that the system Giordano thinks works so well is killing taxpayers. None of them noted that teachers got raises last year averaging more than 4 percent, and that until the governor stepped in, almost none of them paid a dime for health care.
Nor did they go near the hypocrisy of the unions, who are always happy to step outside the sacred collective bargaining process when they can win even more generous benefits from the Legislature, like the infamous 9 percent pension increase a decade ago.
Sadly, the bottom line is that this bill faces long odds. Senate President Steve Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver both hate it, as do most Democrats. Even Republicans say privately the governor will probably lose this one. And if he does manage to win in the Legislature, unions will file lawsuits challenging its legality.
So where does this leave us? For now, we’ll be fine. The recession and the governor’s constant pressure have provided a needed tonic, forcing the average increase this year under 2 percent, the cap level.
But the unions won’t lay low for long. In a year or two, salaries will resume their inexorable rise as unions demand to make up for lost ground. And unless the state increases aid, local voters will face a grim choice — override the cap and swallow higher property taxes, or say goodbye to those young teachers who, talented or not, are always the first to go.
