In the midst of Mullica's Teachers' Contract Negotiations, I thought this article from the Press of Atlantic City would be appropriate to post.
As Trenton lawmakers took the first step to approve a group of bills to reform the state's public-worker pension and benefits systems Thursday, Sen. Jim Whelan, D-Atlantic, tackled the teaching unions, telling them their case for strong state pensions was out-of-date.
Whelan, who teaches in the Atlantic City school district, told a group of hundreds of concerned public workers - including dozens of teachers - that state workers should no longer claim they needed large pensions to make up for low pay.
"I'd just like to touch on one thing that was suggested by a number of speakers: That we need these wonderful pensions and benefits to attract people to public service. And I'm of a generation that that was true for," Whelan said at a hearing of the Senate State Government, Wagering, Tourism and Historic Preservation Committee that he chairs.
"Quite bluntly, when I began teaching -- almost 100 years ago, not quite - we made lousy money, and you were always going to make lousy money. That was true whether you were a teacher, a cop, a fireman, any public employees across the board. We were underpaid, and again, as someone testified today, there were times when raises weren't given, but benefits were, enhancements to pensions were."
But he said times had changed.
"Those elements are no longer the case. We no longer make lousy money. The fact of the matter is that public employees across the board in New Jersey make above what the private sector is paying, of comparative education and comparative time of service."
An independent analysis by the Press of Atlantic City, published Dec. 6, found that police and teachers' pensions are now higher than the typical salaries earned by workers in New Jersey.
Whelan used the Atlantic City district as an example of where pensions and salaries have risen.
"We have several districts, and I happen to teach in one -- I'm not there yet, but we have teachers making over 100 grand. I'm happy about that. I'm happy that we can hear from the police and have police officers making over 100 grand as lieutenants or sergeants or whatever the grade may be. But we need to recognize that that rationale for very strong pensions, very strong benefits, that was low salaries - you had the security and so on - that's not there any more."
Whelan made the statement at the end of a three-hour hearing, where crowds of public workers testified to the bills' anticipated impact.
In taking the stance, he acknowledged his own career track record.
He said: "This is a difficult issue for me, as many of you know. Certainly NJEA (teachers union), and my colleagues here know, I'm a public-school teacher. My wife is a retired public-school teacher. So I'm in the system there, and a beneficiary of it and so on."
The committee then unanimously passed the proposals, the three proposed bills and one resolution. All but one, the Senate concurrent resolution, could go to the Senate as soon as Monday.
SCR1 --A Senate concurrent resolution that would require the state to pay its full pension obligation, but sets that amount on a sliding scale, beginning with 1/7 of the amount in fiscal year 2012. Because this resolution proposes a constitutional amendment, it must wait 20 days before heading to the full Senate.
S2 -- Limits enrollments to defined-benefits pension plans to full-time workers or those working at least 35 hours a week, (or 32 hours a week in municipalities).
S3 -- Existing public employees with fewer than 25 years of service would pay 1.5 percent of their base pension toward healthcare. All future employees would do so.
S4 -- caps Standardizes sick-leave retirement payouts to $15,000, eliminates disability retirement and replaces ordinary disability benefit with private disability insurance coverage.
From the Press of Atlantic City, Juliet Fletcher, Staff Writer, February 18, 2010.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Senator Whelan tells teachers to expect benefit and pension reforms
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
35 comments:
The proposed bills are overly generous. A heavier hand is needed to hold back the rolling snowball of the public system.
I think while many folks respect teachers and appreciate their patience, knowledge, and caring for their children they aren't happy with the NJEA . This organization is a well organized and powerful group that is putting the spotlight on them in this situation and folks are upset at what they see. Not only do they buy off politicans with their deep pockets but they put all who oppose them on a political hit list. From what I understand the NJEA years ago got NJ legislation passed to garnish wages of any teacher who dared not to join the union . They called it"representation fees for contract negotiations" and it amounted to about 85% of what a member would pay for dues. By doing that they put a lock on folks staying in the NJEA who felt as long as they were stuck paying they might as well get job protection and end the peer pressure put on them as outsiders by NJEA and its local officers.In this current situation Im sure a lot of the dues money will be spent by the organization trying to oust Christie and Whalen , sending buses to Trenton and buying T Shirts. Although the reform measure seems to be mild medicine NJEA will fight simply out of a power position and they may be making a bad situation a lot worse.
Divide and conquer is alive and well.
Thanks to past and continuing government and business policy, we have millions out of work, no jobs to replace those lost to low wage earners in other countries, prices for goods have not dropped here, the pensions and wages that the American worker once enjoyed have been taken away, government has raided and squandered the Social Security pensions all American workers were once guaranteed, and now, government wants to degrade and abolish their remaining obligations to public employees. Out of loss, the American workers and those out of work, are allowing themselves to be led into embracing the "we against them" mentality. The wool has been pulled over the eyes of far too many who are now supporting those who took the American worker's dream, and squandered it because of their desire for ever increasing profits and self greed.
Instead of railing against the public workers, we should be railing against those responsible for the debacle that has been created.
There is a small voice complaining about government inefficiency, politicians' extravagant way of life on our tax dollars and govenment bailouts and fat bonuses paid out of what little we have left in our wallets, and the wallets of our future children and grandchildren.
That voice has got to get louder-not against eachother, but against those who are actually responsible for today's horrible mess.
At this time in our history everyone needs to sacrifice, including public workers, but it has to start at the top. We are not going to see that unless we start shouting.
When are those elected to govenmentment going to rein themselves in? When are they going to provide leadership, and be an example?
When is the stock market going to be controlled, instead of being the controlling influence on our costs?
Our economy is no longer based on supply and demand. That concept is now a fiction which is used to drive the cost of our basic necessities-food, heat, fuel for transportation, etc., upward.
I'll stop here. Hopefully the readers will get the point, and start doing something about it. Rather than attack your neighbors who are not the problem, attack those who are responsible for the problem.
The NJEA and the school boards repeated awarding of raises and benefits above what the general public was receiving is a good part of the reason why many of us can no longer pay our property taxes any longer. Its time to give back and level the playing field so we can still afford to live here, not just the wealthy and public employees. We are quickly becoming a nation of haves and have-nots. Something has to give.
"Existing public employees with fewer than 25 years of service would pay 1.5 percent of their base pension toward healthcare. All future employees would do so."
You know, if we all only had to pay 1.5% of our income for health benefits and let the "taxpayers" pay the rest of the bill, I would be in favor of this too.
"Our economy is no longer based on supply and demand".......I know, that's the problem. It's unions and those types of mandates that drive jobs oversees. At least you have enough of a brain to call it what it is, "a debacle".
9:55 - I pay 5% of my income toward my healthcare. I wouldn't mind 1.5% either. Hummm.....who should I ask to pay for that? I know...I'll ask my neighbor. I can't imagine he will mind much.
NJEA is telling all members to try and stop the pension reform bill being passed this Monday with phone calls, emails etc to the politicians. I would urge them to think and take a deep breath here. Gov Christie will not bend to the organization and in fact refused to meet with the organization as a candidate and try to get their endorsement. NJEA will lose the (good will local school staff have with their communities because with the current economic suffering few folks are going to find sympathy with government employees and community support is critical in future contract negotiations. From what I understand while NJEA is powerful it is still illegal for school employees in New Jersey to go on strike and in such instances (not all) school boards have in the act of good faith never punished NJEA or members by taking them to court . This may change if NJEA gets the public angry enough about the perceived greed and arrogance on its part. It'll be the poor staff that will get the fines/ punishment etc while the NJEA leaders in Trenton wont. This is one Governor who is not going to back down like Corzine did.
Single payer, national health care would solve the problem. Then everyone would be contributing a fair share of the costs through their federal income taxes. It would also give a boost to the economy because employers (both public and private) could hire without having to take into account the high cost of health care insurance, now around $20,000 a year for public employees and $9,300 for private workers.
Let's face it. This whole country is in a big mess. 9:12 am is right. We have been robbed by the corrupt politicians, bankers and corporations.
I wish that 9:12am would have given us some suggestions on HOW, as individuals, we can attack this problem.
Voting in different people to serve in DC hasn't helped and peaceful protesters are attacked with tear gas,teasers,clubs,bullets and now microwaves.
I feel the only hope we have of weathering this storm is to stick together as a small community. We have to do whatever helps the majority of the Mullicans. Sacrifices have to be made by a few in order to keep this town affordable for the many.
7:43 PM
"Sacrifices have to be made by a few in order to keep this town affordable for the many."
I think you can safely say that most taxpayers are already having to make sacrifices given the high property taxes that they have to pay.
Please stop making it sound like ALL your tax money goes to the teachers! Yes, their salary and benefits are PART of the costs but so are the EXCESSIVE AMOUNT OF ADMINISTRATORS we have at Mullica! However, educating our children is where most of the money goes. So when we complain about tax increases remember it's our children that suffer with larger class sizes, fewer supplies and less supplemental programs. Stop lumping our teachers in with the NJEA, they have no say in what the union does,just like our school board makes all the decisions without ever listening to you or me. Let's start looking at the big picture and our children's part in it.
Have you ever thought about where your child's supplies come from? When the school doesn't supply something and a child's parent refuses to buy it then guess who buys it 20 times over. You got it! The teacher! How many of you have to supply 20 odd students with everything from tissues to pencils out of your own pocket? Please walk a mile in a teacher's wallet before you start complaining about their salaries- of which on average $4000 a year is out of pocket expenses spent on our children! And no that was not a typo.
re4:00 pm
Why don't the teachers ask the Superintendent or the Principals for the supplies.
It is their job to see that the teachers have all the equipment that is necessary in the classroom.
If that doesn't work, maybe the NJEA should intervene and file complaints on behalf of the teachers.
There should be a supply room in the school that has everything stocked. The teachers should be able to sign out any of the supplies they need.
None of the teachers should pay one cent out of their own pockets. These are the kind of things the teachers should be fighting for that would benefit the children.
The Mullica School is top heavy. Lot of administration. They make alot of money and are not the people who teach the children. No one seems to care that they must have heard about plans in the state and negotiated their big raises ahead of the news. Does this bother anyone? Are they going to re-negotiate? Is the board going to make them?
All I hear about is the teachers, the people actually are teaching are children. The administrators must have heard these state things were coming and brokered their nice deal ahead of time. They took care of themselves and rewarded themselves with thousands each. Does it bother anyone that the school is very topheavy? Don't you think that they should re-negotiate their deal?
RE 4:00 pm
So you're saying that every teacher spends $4,000 or more of their own money buying supplies for their class.
It's time that the parents should be called into the school. There is no excuse for sending the kids into school without their own supplies.
If the lack of school supplies is such a big issue in Mullica's schools, perhaps the school board needs to budget more for these items and not be so generous with raises.
How do the inner cities handle the problem of school supplies? If the parents in Mullica aren't sending their kids in with the proper materials, I doubt that the kids in the poor sections of cities are going to school prepared.
I would bet that the city teachers aren't taking $4,000 a year or more out of their own pockets for pencils and paper.
re 1:54pm
Most of the inner city schools are on the Abbott funding which in some cases each district gets between $50 to $80 million per year in state funding. The NJ Supreme Court ruled decades ago that the state must supply funding to the poor districts that would equal the cost spent per student in the wealthiest districts.. It certainly isnt fair to districts like Mullica but thats the way it is
3:53, 7:16, 7:31 YES, it bothers me with regard to how they took care of themselves and hung out the ones who actually teach our children. I'm sure the Board acted in good faith but none-the-less, they must be held accountable and they must tell us why they felt it reasonable to doll out those kind of raises and vacation packages.
The school supplies teachers with rock-bottom, basic supplies. Teachers are not supplied with markers, colored pencils, paper towels (other that the brown ones in the dispenser), any arts & craft supplies, plastic bags, paper bags, folders, or boxes of tissues in excess of two boxes per month.
Teachers used to receive $30 a year (not $300, not $3,000) to stock their classrooms with "extras" but that was eliminated last year. If your child reads a book in their classroom other than a textbook, chances are their teacher bought it (or it was donated by some kind parent). If your child brings a book home that did not come from the school library, chances are their teacher bought it. If your child's classroom is decorated with posters or fancy furniture items (bookshelves, sofas, pillows, mailboxes, organizers,etc.), the teacher bought it. If your child's classroom is stocked with games, puzzles, art easels, etc., the teacher bought it. If your child brings home a notebook, binder or folder that you did not buy, their teacher did. If your child has received bookmarks, stickers, birthday crowns, prizes or any kind of holiday or end-of-year presents, their teacher bought it. If you have ever received a present or gift from your child that they made in school, their teacher bought the supplies for it.
Why is it that many of us don't know this? Our children's teachers do it out of the kindness of their hearts. They care about Mullica's children and want them to have the best school experience in the best possible environment.
Aside from the money they spend to support our kids, are we truly aware of the countless volunteer hours logged by our children's teachers? Does your child's teacher show up early for an honor roll breakfast? How about chaperoning a school dance or attending an evening gym show or a band or choral concert? What about giving up a Friday night with their family to work a spaghetti dinner that raises money for scholarships for our kids? How about the tireless efforts put forth to support the MTEF and PTA? What about the effort it takes to pull together the annual Children's Theater production? How about the annual fitness walk? Although the teachers may receive payment for hours spent after school for a specific club or activity, they are not paid for any type of time that was spent planning for the activity.
Why do they volunteer? Again, our children's teachers do it out of the kindness of their hearts. They care about Mullica's children and want them to have the best school experience in the best possible environment. This is true whether the teacher resides in this community or not.
I have been reading some disturbing posts lately and it saddens me to see my neighbors speaking so harshly about those that care for our children - people who care unconditionally! I don't find them bashing any of us in the private sector in that manner. Let's be honest, we all want to be compensated fairly for a job well-done. How would the rest of us feel if our salaries, benefits, retirement and the like were put out there for the public to scrutinize? We haven't walked a mile in their shoes and we all know how green the grass looks on the other side.
Pitting neighbor against neighbor is not healthy for our school, our children, or our community. Mullica is better than that. I am thankful that I moved to a close-knit community with such a wonderful school system where, when it comes down to it, we can depend upon each other. Let's not lose sight of that.
7:31 PM I'm not sure how the administrators hung out the teachers. The teachers had the opportunity to settle too but they continue to hold out for something better.
8:34 PM poster
Well written comment and I agree with everything and am well aware. However, there is no comparison between what the teachers receive and the private sector receives.
It's not pitting neighbor against neighbor, it goes much deeper than that. We are all taxpayers.
Why do so many people keep comparing the public school employees with the private sector? If you look at a private sector job that REQUIRES A DEGREE, like teaching, you will see that they make A LOT more than our public school teachers. So let's stop comparing apples and oranges.
Those are nice offices the administraters had built for themselves upstairs. And who approved that? What they do for the children I don't know.
Save all of your receipts and add them up. I wonder if they even come close to the insurance premiums and countless $30.00 co pays I shell out all year. As for that 1/2 hour extra you give here and there...keep a log of that too and see if it even comes close to comparing to the 2 1/2 weeks vacation I get as opposed to the countless summer days off you have. Not to mention Christmas and Easter and a convention that most of you don't even attend. Face it....the gigs up. You now make what the private sector makes in salary and your benefits are so out of whack compared to the private sector that everyone is starting to take notice. Stop crying to me about the $1.50 tissues you buy....it's gettting really old.
Response to 8:59pm poster:
I don't think the teachers are "holding out for something better" - they are looking for around county average - and still are willing to provide above average service to the children of Mullica.
Some of these posts sound like jealousy is alive and well in Mullica Township. If teachers have it so good, why doesn't everyone become a teacher? People in the "private sector" accepted jobs based on whatever the rate of pay was, with whatever the cost for benefits was, and with a set schedule including vacation time. If you don't like the conditions - why take the job?
People in the private sector accept jobs based on supply and demand and accept salaries and benefits based on what the market will dictate. All over NJ, not just in Mullica the "jealous" private sector voted in Christie for a reason and you're one of those reasons. Jealousy has nothing to do with it. You should start saving now. In the near future when the the entire pension and benefit system of public employees implodes under the weight of it's own excesses the old standbys... borrowing, increasing taxes and every other gimmick won't be enough to save it. Better hang on to those tissues. The kids can use their sleeves.
Like I said in my last post, people (the taxpayers) are starting to take notice. Your ignorant posts will only rally more support. Best not bite the hand that feeds you.
NJEA members continue to miss the point, or just prefer not to acknowledge it: teacher salaries have bypassed the average private sector salary, yet they continue to receive gold-plated benefits, summers off, generous guaranteed pensions, and overly ridiculous job security. Yes, that's right. Overly ridiculous. This is one of the only careers in which you can be average, below average, or severly below average in what you do and continue to receive pay increases beyond the rate of inflation with no fear of ever losing your job. Those employed in the private sector, or now unemployed, are not jealous---they are resentful that they are on the hook to pay for these ludicrous benefits, pensions, and extended vacations.
Here's a tidbit for Gadfly readers: Teacher contracts are top-heavy for those teachers who have the most seniority...educators in the early years of their employment receive lower percentage pay increases than those who have NO INCENTIVE to do a good job based on their TENURE. This is NOT the fault of the district---this is how the teacher's union negotiates their deal, to discriminate against their own membership.
For those Mullica teachers who do not appreciate the opportunity to work in this district, I only wish that you would seek employment elsewhere so that the district can hire replacements who will welcome this opportunity.
And, once and for all, stop insulting our intelligence by telling us "it's about the children." A small but vocal group of you are showing us it is all about you.
If the teachers want more money to buy supplies, maybe they should stop squeezing every last cent out of overburdened taxpayers so that something could be budgeted for the supplies.
Yes, there are some very dedicated teachers here in Mullica, ones who would want this job even if it didn't come with all of the fat raises and benefits...those few, however, are becoming harder and harder to find...
It's over for the "gem" here in Mullica; think of it this way...
If you have four classes in a grade with 21 students each, and you lose one of those teachers due to budget cuts, you now have three classes in the next grade with 28 students each. That is NOT a difference of one or two students, and it is NOT a below-average class size.
Yes, the state is cutting money from schools, but the demands of a handful of greedy teachers will do far more damage to education her in Mullica than the state could ever do.
I think that all these debates continue NJEA and it leaders needs to remember that when children do well the parents with their support, respect ,concern and care also need to take a lot of credit. Add to that the tremendous support of this community. Mullica is very unique in these factors. I would believe that teachers in other districts particulary the inner city would find a job here as being in paradise. If conditions here were truly bad there would be a higher turnover of the staff who wanted to get out.
No one is happy about the budget conditions and the fiscal mess but into each life rain must fall, As Governor Christie recently quipped "Its not only raining but its pouring."
Teachers always like to point to administration as where the money goes however, the truth is, the bulk of the school budget money goes to the teachers. Teachers like to talk about how they buy things for the kids and the hours that they put in. The truth is they put in less than an 8 hour day and for things like latch key, sports and other after school activities, they are paid on an hourly basis above and beyond their salaries. They also do not work year round. Teachers do not have a clue what the real world is like because they have been so protected and insulated by NJEA. It is all about give me and give me more. In one state they laid off all the teachers.
Post a Comment