| ||||||||||||
audit of all school boards; move school elections to November (linked to moving the school vote to November, are the non-partisan municipal elections bills A351 [already passed in the Assembly] and S1099 up for a vote in the Senate tomorrow/click on More here); encourage shared services before [to reduce taxes] other than de-linking property taxes from education funding first, because the de-linking results in tax-shfiting, not reduction in spending; "teachers are not the problem, it's the over-politicized leadership of their union"... read articles and election bill by clicking here on
.
12-9-09 Asbury Park Press/Christie: With or without NJEA, education changes coming, By Bob Ingle
December 08, 2009 • 8:00 pm
By Bob Ingle
Gov.-elect Chris Christie says not only can we reduce spending, we have to. And if the Legislature can’t go along, he will use his veto. He says they won’t have enough votes to override.
Appearing on 101.5 FM’s “Ask the Governor” (Governor-elect edition) Christie says he will speak out and name names and pointed out, he already has. ”Get used to it, you have four years coming” of his tell it like it is style.
He says business taxes will drop in July when some taxes are scheduled to expire. He said he won’t renew them.
In the short term, he said, the property tax link to funding education can’t be changed. He said he wants to try other ways before de-linking because that is just tax-shifting and he wants tax reduction.
Asked what he would do to help unions thrive, Christie said the only way to do it is make business thrive by lowering business taxes.
He said he doesn’t think the time is right to increase the cost of labor via laws to hike prevailing wages.
A state worker said she saw waste and corruption and wanted to know what he would do to clean it up. Christie said he will do all he can to fix it. Christie said he told staff its job is not to replace Democratic hacks with Republican hacks. Their job is to do away with needless jobs.
Christie said he will evaluate political appointees, not wholesale eliminate appointees.
Christie said he has put forward specific ideas for reducing taxes, auditing school boards, for instance. “One we get those results, tying the amount of school aid to reduction of middle management costs.” He also said he wants school board elections moved to November.
Host Eric Johnson reminded Christie the teachers union, NJEA, was no friend of his during the campaign. Christie agreed. He said contrary to published reports, the NJEA had not contacted his office about a meeting after the election.
“Teachers are not the problem. It’s the over-politicized of the leadership of their union.” He said he will work with the union but if they don’t he will make education changes anyway.
Christie said the law doesn’t give Comptroller Matt Boxer the resources to do what he wants. Christie repeated he thinks New Jersey needs an elected Comptroller and he will work toward that. Christie said he will bring in more people who worked with him in the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Christie repeated what he said during the campaign, he wants more people insured. A part of that is to offered insurance policies without all the state mandates.
When asked about hiking the gas tax, Christie said, “No.” When told Speaker Joe Roberts told an audience one might be necessary now, Christie said Roberts has been speaker for eight years, why didn’t Roberts propose a gas tax? ”Now, all of a sudden they want to dump it in my lap.”
He said he wasn’t invited to the NJBIA Conference today where Roberts proposed the gas tax. He said if he had been, he would have told NJBIA “no” in person.
He doesn’t think forced consolidation of small municipalities is the way to go. He said he thinks shared services should be encouraged. “I’m afraid of handing more power to the bureaucracy in Trenton.” The first step is to encourage shared services. The alternative is forced consolidation.
About creating jobs, he said economic incentives to lure business will come with strings to get new jobs to Jersey. He told a caller if he doesn’t think he’s different from other politicians, just watch. “Come Jan. 19 … watch me, then you make up your own mind.”
He said he wants zero-based budgeting instead of taking the last budget and working on that, as it is done now. “My priorities are specifically to make sure tax relief happens.” He said next he wants education funded to the greatest degree the state can. A lot of other aid programs won’t necessarily be a priority.
He encouraged a caller to keep a score card and see how well he keeps his promises. He said he would like to see higher education funded better. He said the first year will be very difficult, painful for many people.
Christie said casino money should be invested in Atlantic City, not all over the state. He said he would work closely with AC officials.
He said he picked 10 members of his transition team, not to make it a show like McGreevey did with 88 transition members. He said he picked the best people he could find. He said he won’t keep a list of the people who made him angry during the campaign because there is not enough paper.
He said he likes color lights on the Christmas tree, turkey on the Christmas dinner table. Gifts are exchanged between him and his wife Christmas eve and for the kids on Christmas day.
About his new status, “I’m kind of hard to miss. I am not a small guy.”
“I’m thrilled to be here. I like getting questions from people directly.”
N.J. Gov.-elect Chris Christie to call for audit of school boards
December 08, 2009, 9:51PM
TRENTON — Gov.-elect Chris Christie says he will call for an audit of all school boards when he becomes governor and wants to move school board elections to November.
During New Jersey 101.5's "Ask the Governor" program on Tuesday, Christie also suggested tying education funding to a reduction of "middle management" in school districts as he looks to cut property taxes and close an $8 billion budget deficit for the upcoming fiscal year.
Nearly half of all property taxes, which are the highest in the nation at an average of $7,000 a home, go toward education funding.
