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Philadelphia Inquire 'High turnout in many N.J. school races'
polictickernj.com 'Claiming victory in school budgets defeat, Christie urges governing bodies to seek wage freezes from teachers'
northjersey.com 'Christie claims mandate for school budget reforms'
politickernj.com 'Sweeney says Christie scapegoated teachers - and won'
Drewniak says Senate President should take some responsibility for mess
Editorials: The Record: Budget lessons …Asbury Park Press…The Record – Stile… The Star Ledger
High turnout in many N.J. school races
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/nj/20100421_High_turnout_in_many_N_J__school_races.html
Claiming victory in school budgets' defeat, Christie urges governing bodies to seek wage freezes from teachers
Christie claims mandate for school budget reforms
Sweeney says Christie scapegoated teachers - and won; Drewniak says Senate President should take some responsibility for mess
http://www.politickernj.com/max/38569/sweeney-christie-scapegoated-teachers-and-won
The Record: Budget lessons
Thursday, April 22, 2010
The Record
AFTER MONTHS of heated rhetoric from Governor Christie about the power of the state teachers union and the cost of salaries and benefits, the people have finally spoken.
But what exactly did they say during Tuesday's school board elections?
Statewide, voters defeated 59 percent of budget proposals, after districts offered up a mix of layoffs, program cancellations and higher tax bills in response to unprecedented cuts in state aid. It is the first time since 1976 when more than half of proposals were defeated. Last year, 27 percent were defeated.
That indicates that at least some voters were swayed by the governor, who urged no votes in all communities where teachers didn't agree to a wage freeze. Fewer than two dozen of the state's 550-plus districts did.
The politics apparently had little influence in Bergen and Passaic counties. In Bergen, where just two districts won wage freezes, voters passed three-quarters of all budgets. In Passaic, where no wage freezes were approved, just one-third of budgets passed — but that was slightly more than last year.
New Jerseyans have a complicated relationship to their local school districts. Most residents rely on local schools to educate their children and protect the values of their homes. Many citizens view supporting public schools as a civic duty. As Ramsey voter Richard Cantisano told The Record, "If people think education is expensive, they should try ignorance."
But the cost is killing many of us. In part because of public employees' contracts, property taxes ballooned by more than 50 percent during the past decade to an average of $7,281. As another Ramsey voter, Anna Tymon, said, "I can't afford the school budget. I pay a lot in property taxes, and if they keep going up I'm going to lose my house."
These voters represent the two-pronged mandate that we see in Tuesday's results. Voters are demanding more cost-effective schools. But they also want to safeguard the overall top-quality education that takes place in our public system. We can't pay for it all, they are saying. But we will spend our money on what is most important to that mission.
Many of Christie's talking points are correct. Government is too expensive, including salaries and benefits for public employees. But that includes police officers and other public workers, not just members of the New Jersey Education Association. Going forward, the dialogue must be less explosive and more expansive.
Unions did not just gain influence by accident. Elected officials, poor arbitration guidelines and an uninterested electorate helped get us to where we are today. More voters turned out Tuesday. That was a good start.
No matter how loud his bluster, Christie has little direct say over these school budgets. Locally elected officials are in charge. Now, where budgets were defeated, municipal councils are in control — it's up to them to decide what to cut and how much homeowners will pay. These are the same politicians who have signed off on costly contracts with police, fire and municipal union leaders.
Anyone interested in controlling taxes would do well to keep a close watch over what's happening in municipal hall. The hard work is just beginning.
AFTER MONTHS of heated rhetoric from Governor Christie about the power of the state teachers union and the cost of salaries and benefits, the people have finally spoken.
But what exactly did they say during Tuesday's school board elections?
Statewide, voters defeated 59 percent of budget proposals, after districts offered up a mix of layoffs, program cancellations and higher tax bills in response to unprecedented cuts in state aid. It is the first time since 1976 when more than half of proposals were defeated. Last year, 27 percent were defeated.
That indicates that at least some voters were swayed by the governor, who urged no votes in all communities where teachers didn't agree to a wage freeze. Fewer than two dozen of the state's 550-plus districts did.
The politics apparently had little influence in Bergen and Passaic counties. In Bergen, where just two districts won wage freezes, voters passed three-quarters of all budgets. In Passaic, where no wage freezes were approved, just one-third of budgets passed — but that was slightly more than last year.
New Jerseyans have a complicated relationship to their local school districts. Most residents rely on local schools to educate their children and protect the values of their homes. Many citizens view supporting public schools as a civic duty. As Ramsey voter Richard Cantisano told The Record, "If people think education is expensive, they should try ignorance."
But the cost is killing many of us. In part because of public employees' contracts, property taxes ballooned by more than 50 percent during the past decade to an average of $7,281. As another Ramsey voter, Anna Tymon, said, "I can't afford the school budget. I pay a lot in property taxes, and if they keep going up I'm going to lose my house."
These voters represent the two-pronged mandate that we see in Tuesday's results. Voters are demanding more cost-effective schools. But they also want to safeguard the overall top-quality education that takes place in our public system. We can't pay for it all, they are saying. But we will spend our money on what is most important to that mission.
Many of Christie's talking points are correct. Government is too expensive, including salaries and benefits for public employees. But that includes police officers and other public workers, not just members of the New Jersey Education Association. Going forward, the dialogue must be less explosive and more expansive.
Unions did not just gain influence by accident. Elected officials, poor arbitration guidelines and an uninterested electorate helped get us to where we are today. More voters turned out Tuesday. That was a good start.
No matter how loud his bluster, Christie has little direct say over these school budgets. Locally elected officials are in charge. Now, where budgets were defeated, municipal councils are in control — it's up to them to decide what to cut and how much homeowners will pay. These are the same politicians who have signed off on costly contracts with police, fire and municipal union leaders.
Anyone interested in controlling taxes would do well to keep a close watch over what's happening in municipal hall. The hard work is just beginning.
Various explanations have been offered for voters' rejection of nearly six of every 10 school budgets in New Jersey Tuesday — the highest rejection rate in at least 35 years:
Outrage over the state's highest-in-the-nation property taxes and anxiety over the prospect of further increases.
The stagnant economy and stubbornly high unemployment rate.
Anger at the refusal of most local teachers' unions — all but 20 statewide — to accept a one-year wage freeze requested by Gov. Chris Christie.
Longstanding frustration with government's failure at all levels to rein in spending.
All contributed to the climate that led to the stunning 72 percent rejection of school budgets in Monmouth County, the rejection of all six second-ballot questions statewide to spend above the state spending caps, the lopsided margins of defeat in places like Lakewood (5,448 to 659), Plumsted (1,222 to 564) and Howell (5,024 to 3,249), and the beating scores of incumbent school board members took in Monmouth and Ocean county towns.
See what passed and what didn't in this election results chart for Monmouth, Ocean counties
But the most important factor may well have been Christie's call for voters to reject budgets in school districts where the teachers' union failed to agree to one-year wage freezes to ease property tax increases and reduce layoffs and program cuts necessitated by the state's $11 billion budget deficit.
While the poor economy likely played a part in the defeats, the economic climate was as bad or worse last year, when voters approved 73.3 percent of the budgets. Similarly, property taxes were no more of a concern this year than last.
In districts where school budgets were defeated, the municipal governing bodies will have until May 19 to decide whether to leave the spending plans intact or to make cuts.
The reviews will present another opportunity for teachers to accept the concept of shared sacrifice and decide whether they want to accept a wage freeze to ward off additional layoffs and program cuts.
The teachers' response to the budget defeats and their willingness to soften their hardline stance on concessions may well determine how long it takes for them to win back the support of taxpayers in their communities.
In the meantime, we hope the intransigence of the teachers' unions will strengthen the resolve of state lawmakers to do legislatively what the union leadership has failed to do voluntarily — bring teacher salaries and benefits in line with today's economic realities and with what taxpayers in New Jersey can afford.
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The Record - Stile: School budget supporters cast ballots for the future
Thursday, April 22, 2010
By CHARLES STILE
COLUMNIST
Douglas Schwartz, an affable booster of Wayne public schools, voted to approve the district’s budget Tuesday — even though it will lead to teacher layoffs, program cuts and a $250 spike in his property taxes.
The "yes" vote was a no-brainer. Things could have been a lot worse if the $136.5 million budget went down in defeat. It would have meant deeper cuts, higher classroom sizes and the start of a slide backward to the district’s mediocre reputation of 1978, when Schwartz graduated from Wayne Hills High School.
"It was the lesser of two evils," Schwartz, a father of two, said minutes after casting his vote at Pines Lake Elementary School. "If you don’t vote for it, then it’s going to be capped [by the Township Committee] at some lower amount."
Schwartz’s strategic rationale helps explain the "anomaly," as Governor Christie called the high rate of voter approval for public school budgets in North Jersey.
Budgets in 66 percent of districts in The Record’s coverage area won approval — a reversal and then some of the 58 percent statewide rejection rate. The approval rate was especially high in Bergen County, where voters backed 73 percent of school budgets.
Christie was at a loss to explain the anomaly, and didn’t seem all that interested in venturing an opinion. It’s easy to understand why.
Those North Jersey budget victories were a speed bump on Christie’s victory lap Wednesday. He said the historic rate of rejection across the state was "crystal clear" proof that the public embraced his agenda of reform, that they’re furious with the selfish teachers union’s refusals to accept a wage freeze, and that they’re ready for that fiscal "day of reckoning."
Instead of clarity, North Jersey offered Christie murk. Voters approved school budgets in 28 of the 40 Bergen County towns Christie won in the November election.
But North Jersey’s high rate of approval isn’t necessarily a black-and-white repudiation of Christie’s agenda, either. Yes, voters were aware of the Christie brawl with the New Jersey Education Association, the powerful teachers union. And they had a general, recession-weary resignation that steep cuts are a certainty and that Christie had turned off Trenton’s spending spigot.
But in nearly two dozen interviews with voters and officials over the past two days, one theme emerged. Voters in affluent towns like Ramsey and Franklin Lakes and Oradell and Wayne are ambitious for their children and the schools. They are willing to endure sky-high property taxes and the high cost of living in order to maintain the gold-plated luster of their schools.
While many might agree in principle with Christie’s goals, they have their own agenda, which is seen through a narrower lens rather than the historic sweep in which Christie places the state’s fiscal problems.
If anything, Christie’s cuts in aid and rhetoric wrenched those parochial priorities into sharper focus. A rejection would only place the grim budget in the hands of the municipal government, which many feared would be all-but-certain to cut deeper.
"I was likening it to a mama bear protecting its cubs," said Roy Montesano, the superintendent in Ramsey, where voters approved a $50.1 million budget despite a $2.2 million cut in state aid.
"Everyone agrees that changes have to be made … but this is our town we’re talking about."
And without a quality school system, "it could drive our property values down," Montesano said, offering a representative voice of Ramsey voters.
Ramsey is Christie territory. He carried the town last November and was treated with a hero’s welcome on a visit to its first-aid squad in March.
On paper, it would seem just as good as any other Republican-leaning town to endorse his fiscal conservatism and cheer his confrontation with public employee unions. It’s the kind of place where Christie could have reasonably expected voters to heed his call to reject school budgets if teachers refused to accept a one-year wage freeze. Ramsey teachers did not agree to any salary freeze.
Christie argued that the salary concession would offset most of the cuts Ramsey planned for its school budget. A freeze, in Christie’s argument, might have averted the 15 layoffs or kept the middle-school sports programs operating, or led to a smaller tax increase.
Montesano said the Christie-NJEA brawl was part of the debate among voters, and it may have been a factor behind some of the "no" votes and the higher-than-normal turnout. But it also may have backfired.
"I also think it angered the other side," he said, again articulating the sentiment of voters. "Here we are … exercising our own voice and he’s trying to tell us what to do and that’s not acceptable."
Douglas Schwartz, an affable booster of Wayne public schools, voted to approve the district’s budget Tuesday — even though it will lead to teacher layoffs, program cuts and a $250 spike in his property taxes.
The "yes" vote was a no-brainer. Things could have been a lot worse if the $136.5 million budget went down in defeat. It would have meant deeper cuts, higher classroom sizes and the start of a slide backward to the district’s mediocre reputation of 1978, when Schwartz graduated from Wayne Hills High School.
"It was the lesser of two evils," Schwartz, a father of two, said minutes after casting his vote at Pines Lake Elementary School. "If you don’t vote for it, then it’s going to be capped [by the Township Committee] at some lower amount."
Schwartz’s strategic rationale helps explain the "anomaly," as Governor Christie called the high rate of voter approval for public school budgets in North Jersey.
Budgets in 66 percent of districts in The Record’s coverage area won approval — a reversal and then some of the 58 percent statewide rejection rate. The approval rate was especially high in Bergen County, where voters backed 73 percent of school budgets.
Christie was at a loss to explain the anomaly, and didn’t seem all that interested in venturing an opinion. It’s easy to understand why.
Those North Jersey budget victories were a speed bump on Christie’s victory lap Wednesday. He said the historic rate of rejection across the state was "crystal clear" proof that the public embraced his agenda of reform, that they’re furious with the selfish teachers union’s refusals to accept a wage freeze, and that they’re ready for that fiscal "day of reckoning."
Instead of clarity, North Jersey offered Christie murk. Voters approved school budgets in 28 of the 40 Bergen County towns Christie won in the November election.
But North Jersey’s high rate of approval isn’t necessarily a black-and-white repudiation of Christie’s agenda, either. Yes, voters were aware of the Christie brawl with the New Jersey Education Association, the powerful teachers union. And they had a general, recession-weary resignation that steep cuts are a certainty and that Christie had turned off Trenton’s spending spigot.
But in nearly two dozen interviews with voters and officials over the past two days, one theme emerged. Voters in affluent towns like Ramsey and Franklin Lakes and Oradell and Wayne are ambitious for their children and the schools. They are willing to endure sky-high property taxes and the high cost of living in order to maintain the gold-plated luster of their schools.
While many might agree in principle with Christie’s goals, they have their own agenda, which is seen through a narrower lens rather than the historic sweep in which Christie places the state’s fiscal problems.
If anything, Christie’s cuts in aid and rhetoric wrenched those parochial priorities into sharper focus. A rejection would only place the grim budget in the hands of the municipal government, which many feared would be all-but-certain to cut deeper.
"I was likening it to a mama bear protecting its cubs," said Roy Montesano, the superintendent in Ramsey, where voters approved a $50.1 million budget despite a $2.2 million cut in state aid.
"Everyone agrees that changes have to be made … but this is our town we’re talking about."
And without a quality school system, "it could drive our property values down," Montesano said, offering a representative voice of Ramsey voters.
Ramsey is Christie territory. He carried the town last November and was treated with a hero’s welcome on a visit to its first-aid squad in March.
On paper, it would seem just as good as any other Republican-leaning town to endorse his fiscal conservatism and cheer his confrontation with public employee unions. It’s the kind of place where Christie could have reasonably expected voters to heed his call to reject school budgets if teachers refused to accept a one-year wage freeze. Ramsey teachers did not agree to any salary freeze.
Christie argued that the salary concession would offset most of the cuts Ramsey planned for its school budget. A freeze, in Christie’s argument, might have averted the 15 layoffs or kept the middle-school sports programs operating, or led to a smaller tax increase.
Montesano said the Christie-NJEA brawl was part of the debate among voters, and it may have been a factor behind some of the "no" votes and the higher-than-normal turnout. But it also may have backfired.
"I also think it angered the other side," he said, again articulating the sentiment of voters. "Here we are … exercising our own voice and he’s trying to tell us what to do and that’s not acceptable."
But voters who hold the spare-no-expense view also consider well-paid teachers a valuable asset in their school investment. Those voters prevailed on Tuesday.
Susan Murphy, a longtime Wayne real estate agent, voted to approve the Wayne school budget. She said she always votes to approve the budgets, regardless of the economic climate because it’s in the town’s best long-term interest.
"People are worried about their taxes going up, which I understand, but they will lose more in property values than in taxes if the schools aren’t good," she said.
The first of Murphy’s five grandchildren will enter a Wayne kindergarten in September. So Murphy believes taking the lesser-of-two-evils choice is a good investment for the long-term.
"It will affect us for years to come," she said.
But voters who hold the spare-no-expense view also consider well-paid teachers a valuable asset in their school investment. Those voters prevailed on Tuesday.
Susan Murphy, a longtime Wayne real estate agent, voted to approve the Wayne school budget. She said she always votes to approve the budgets, regardless of the economic climate because it’s in the town’s best long-term interest.
"People are worried about their taxes going up, which I understand, but they will lose more in property values than in taxes if the schools aren’t good," she said.
The first of Murphy’s five grandchildren will enter a Wayne kindergarten in September. So Murphy believes taking the lesser-of-two-evils choice is a good investment for the long-term.
"It will affect us for years to come," she said
N.J. school board bellwether: Voters demand a better balance between education and taxation
By Star-Ledger Editorial Board/The Star-Led...
April 22, 2010, 5:45AM
An unprecedented 316 school budgets were defeated by voters Tuesday, and there probably were 316 different reasons:
Suffocating property taxes. Most teachers thumbing their noses at a pay freeze. The governor told them to do it. The governor cut their state aid. Voter anger. Taxpayer anxiety. Local factors like how hard the school board tried to keep costs down and how high taxes already are.
Cash-strapped districts might be cutting theater programs, but make no mistake, there is still plenty of drama surrounding New Jersey schools.
In this springtime production, Gov. Chris Christie played the Wizard of Oz, pulling levers to produce thunder and fire, while casting teachers union president Barbara Keshishian as the Wicked Witch of Trenton.
The governor apparently won over most of the audience. Yesterday he said the voters’ rejection of a majority of school budgets shows they agree with his push for “real, fundamental change.” But there is still strong public support for New Jersey’s public schools as evidenced by the 41 percent of budgets passed and the narrow margins of defeat for many others. And the teachers union blamed the defeats on Christie’s aid cuts.
This play isn’t over. In the next act, mayors and town councils are caught in the crossfire, as the rejected budgets land in their laps. It’s now their responsibility to balance the voters’ demand to limit tax increases against the legitimate costs of a good education.
With help from the school boards, they must work out new budgets by May 19. That leaves four weeks for the NJEA and Christie to start the healing by negotiating a truce.
In districts where budgets have been rejected, there is still time for teachers to accept a one-year pay freeze and save jobs and programs. If, before election day, teachers couldn’t hear taxpayers pleading for a tax timeout, there is no mistaking the bullhorn message now.
Likewise, it’s time for Christie to budge on restoring part of last year’s surtax on high-income residents — to live by his mantra of “shared pain” and make it sting for the state’s richest residents, too. With a compromise on the rate, the governor could generate hundreds of millions of dollars and funnel some of that into the bruised schools.
Mayors and councils, meanwhile, must fulfill their responsibilities and quickly learn the intimate details of their school districts’ budgets. Doing their homework will enable them to make informed and responsible — and the least painful — cuts.
The melodrama has reached the final act, and the governor and teachers union should stop ad-libbing and upstaging each other. At this point, the script calls for them to be leaders.
