N.J. sets rules for school spending

...but who will enforce over-spending? The superintendents making $200,000+ a year?

School districts seeking advice on how to spend tax dollars got a dense lesson from the state on Wednesday.

The Education Department released a 205-page rulebook on how districts must craft their budgets, hire and fire top administrators, and handle shared-service agreements with neighboring towns. The reforms are required under new laws aimed at reducing New Jersey's property taxes, the highest in the nation.

"Taxpayers have been extremely generous," Education Commissioner Lucille Davy said in Trenton. "Given our economic challenges ... it is important that we focus on the efficient use of the resources that are available."

Among other provisions, the rules allow executive county superintendents to issue line-item vetoes on local budgets and order thorough audits of districts they think spend too much. In Bergen County, that authority is given to longtime Superintendent Aaron Graham. Passaic County does not yet have a county superintendent. The job is temporarily held by Robert Gilmartin, the former schools chief in West Milford.

The rules are set to be officially approved in coming weeks and all school districts are expected to follow them during the 2008-09 school year. They put in place mandates set by New Jersey's new school funding formula, the School District Fiscal Accountability Act and the "CORE" reform law that emerged from last year's special legislative session on property tax reform.

"The governor has made it clear," Davy said. "The public is telling us that they want greater transparency and accountability."

Many of the reforms have already been phased in during the current budget season, such as having county superintendents review requests for tax increases over a 4 percent cap.

In recent years, superintendents have reacted with anger or confusion to the states' tightening grip on local spending. However, those public complaints faded after Governor Corzine increased state aid to school districts by more than $500 million this year.

Tenafly Superintendent Mort Sherman said most superintendents would agree that transparency is a good thing in school budgets — in no small part because the public must vote to approve them every year.

"The overwhelming majority of county and local superintendents will say this is OK," he said. "Times are tough. We need to roll up our sleeves."

The state School Boards Association had expressed concern about some of the reforms as the original laws were being debated; spokesman Frank Belluscio said his group had not yet seen the draft rules on Wednesday. He recalled the organization's worry about making county superintendents gubernatorial appointees.

"That brings in a lot of political concerns," he said.

He said that while the goals of the reforms were shared, his organization "would have be concerned about any type of over-regulation. ... School boards in New Jersey are highly fiscally responsible, and they operate under an ethics act that is stricter than that for other public officials."

DOE Commissioner Lucille Davy to get grilled today about VERY questionable spending

"There are cocktail parties in the audit report,
there are administrative dinners, there are hotel costs, there are Atlantic City trips,
there are staff parties."
Davy is scheduled to testify before the Budget panel this afternoon.

Some examples of our hard earned money being spent "wisely" at:
The School District Cosa Nostra:

A review of the KPMG audit for the Union City School District (formerly known as an Abbott district) shows the following:

·One individual was paid for 14 pay periods after termination at the employee's request.
·Two individuals were paid 21 and 24 pay periods after termination.
·The audit report says that, according to the contract, school bus drivers are paid 6 hours of overtime each month in order to charge their cell phones.
·One bus driver in the 05-06 school year earned $73,125 in overtime, which accounted for 237% of the driver's base pay. In other words, the driver earned over $100,000 in wages that year.
·A bus driver in the 04-05 school year earned $61,456 in overtime, 217% of base salary.
·One bus driver in the 05-06 school year earned $51,725 in overtime, 204% of base salary.
·$150,000 for an annual lease of the Ronald Dario Swimming Complex, which was used only part-time in year 05-06; and $100,000 for 04-05, again for part-time use?
·The district spent $72,843 for cable TV spots.
·$55,000 was sent to a PR company for helping the district to prepare monthly superintendent's newsletters, which were sent out in August 2004.
·Another approximately $50,000 was expended in printing costs for 1,000 posters and 25,000 brochures.
·$32,302 was sent to a DC law firm to help the district secure grants
·$26,000 in monthly payments were made for website development. Monthly?
·The district paid $2,315 to send kids to Medieval Times. See the following link: . Medieval Times is a chain corporation, which provides dinner and a live jousting show.
·$2,600 for a staff party.
·Taxpayers spent $9,268 for hotel expenses incurred for an out-of-state administrative retreat.
·$3,476 was spent to send 28 students to visit colleges; one trip went to Boston.
·The district spent $3-K to pay for "floats for [a] Thanksgiving Day Parade."
·A firm called Furia Rubel, based out of PA, was paid big bucks from the district for PR and website development. Just singling out the period from October 2004 to February 2005, the firm received over $148,000. And the payments don't stop after that.
·A trip to a Poconos resort, paying for a "field trip" for 140 seventh graders and chaperones back in June 2004.
·$400 for a "clown show" at Gilmore school, which the auditor labeled "questionable."
·$13,411 monthly payment for 39 cell phones used by bus drivers.
·A "Cocktail Dinner" for 50 people at the Old Tapas Restaurant -- $1,150. "Food for staff."
·$21,125 for 25,000 brochures called "Keys to the City," which were sent to the entire City.
·$1,716 for an LCD flat panel TV for the HR Director's Office.
·$2,268 to the Sheraton Edison Hotel back in February 2005, which paid the tab for students and two teachers. According to the audit report, no agenda was found and they were unable to determine the purpose or necessity of the trip.

READ THE ARTICLE HERE

Manalapan/Englishtown: Teachers picket school board

More than 150 teachers — carrying signs with slogans such as "No contract, still working, always caring" — protested outside Manalapan-Englishtown Regional Schools' Main Street administration offices Monday, urging district officials to settle contract negotiations as soon as possible.

Among sticking points in the negotiations are salary and benefits, said teachers of the Manalapan-Englishtown Education Association, who have been working without a contract since June.

But district officials, who did not wish to discuss specifics Monday, said they've offered a fair settlement that teachers won't accept.

Association President Ken Weber, a teacher at Pine Brook School, said in his recollection the kindergarten-through-eighth-grade district has settled a contract only once before it expired in his 30-plus years working there.

"I'd like someone to explain why it's fair to offer teachers in Manalapan the second lowest increase in the county," Weber said before the demonstration, which preceded a fact-finding session at administration offices Monday night. "If someone can explain to us how that's fair, we'll take a look at it."

The district is offering teachers below the 4.64 percent average 2007-08 salary increase in Monmouth County, Weber said, although he would not divulge what the number was. He was flanked during the protest by New Jersey Education Association President Joyce Powell, who attended the rally to lend her support to the association's cause.

(Just for the record, I got a raise of 3% and was very happy)

Public Worker Salaries & Benefits Increased to 45% of State Budget

State pensions, benefits also grow at rapid clip

Since 1998, the costs of public worker salaries and benefits have increased by more than $4.2 billion.

That's 45 percent of the total increase in the state budget, according to the state Treasury Department documents provided to lawmakers.

Since 1998, just the cost of health insurance and retirement benefits for employees and retirees increased by 201 percent, from $1.56 billion to $4.69 billion —nearly seven times the rate of inflation.

About 450,000 teachers, state workers and other public employees contribute to the state's various pension systems.

Rae Roeder, who represents 7,000 state workers as president of Communications Workers of America Local 1033, said she doesn't want to hear about having teachers, police or other state employees pay more for their health care or pension costs.

State workers already contribute 5.5 percent of their pay to pensions and 1.5 percent of their salaries toward health insurance.

When asked if she could empathize with workers in private industry, who typically pay more for health insurance and their retirement plans, she said, "Private industry has flushed its workers down the toilet."

She said she wouldn't participate in any conversation about trimming the costs of state workers' benefits.

"Now, I see the conversation going down the harebrained road of the right-wing nuts. So I'm done with this conversation," she said, hanging up the phone.

"We have no one to blame but ourselves," said Michael P. Riccards, executive director of the nonpartisan Hall Institute of Public Policy in Trenton. "We're an old state with a lot of old institutions. A lot of situations need to be changed. And neither political party has a reform caucus that can make it happen."

$33 Billion and counting

Although the size of the state budget has nearly doubled in the last 10 years, the governor keeps telling us we're broke.

So, where has the money gone? How could spending jump from $16.8 billion in 1998 to $33.4 billion in 2008 — and we still can't pay the bills?

You'll find most of the money if you look at three categories: spending on education — especially extra aid to low-income schools; salaries and benefits for government workers and retirees; and property tax relief.

In the 31 neediest school districts, called Abbott districts, it cost an average of $14,431 to educate each pupil, according to a review of 2007 school spending figures. That was $2,280 higher than the average per-pupil cost for all public school students last year.

Corporate scholarships

There's only one thing lacking in the Abbott districts — academic quality, said Dan Gaby, executive director of Excellent Education for Everyone. His group, known as E3, favors state financial support of private schools. Gaby served as vice president of the state Board of Education in the 1970s under former Democratic Gov. Brendan T. Byrne.

Despite the $30 billion spent on education in the Abbott districts over the last decade, standardized state test scores show little improvement, except in the elementary grades, according to state Department of Education data.

In some of the poorest districts, dropout rates remain high. Asbury Park High School's graduation rate was 63.5 percent last year. Camden High School's graduation rate was 49.8 percent. In 2007, the state's average graduation rate was 92.3 percent.

"We could spend half the money and get better results. The children are out of time, and the taxpayers are out of money," Gaby said.

Read the entire APP article HERE