Spring has finally arrived, after what was a long, snowy winter. Last weekend we were in the midst of a deluge as well, so hopefully with temperatures in the 60s the past few days, we are in the start of much more pleasant weather ahead.

So now the governor has drastically cut all funding to public schools and is imposing a maximum 2.5% annual increase on local budgets as well. Meanwhile, he is not renewing a tax increase on state residents earning over $400,000 per year, since he obviously cares more about protecting his rich friends than public education (he sends his kids to private schools). According to the local paper, the amount of money which is being lost due to the expiring tax increase is more than the total amount of the cut in school funding. Obviously, he is trying to force districts to either fire teachers or re-open contracts and reduce teachers’ salaries. Thank heavens we made the decision to retire this year!

To make matters worse for teachers, bills are going through the state legislature without any Democratic resistance to lower teacher benefits and pensions. One of them immediately reduces the pension of all future retirees from the average of the three highest years’ salaries divided by 55 to the average of the five highest years’ salaries divided by 60. Since our pensions have already been accepted by the state pension division, which has sent us our pension amounts, I wonder if this particular law will affect us. It would cost us quite a bit of pension money each year, so I hope not.

Much of the impetus in these laws is because the state legislature has not fully-funded teachers’ pensions for the past decade, instead illegally using that money to pay other bills. The NJEA has sued twice, and won both times, but the courts refused to require the state to make the payments because the money was not available. So basically the courts protected the incompetent politicians. The state legislature has also made no attempt to stay within its budget, overspending annually and pushing the bills back year after year. Finally, the budget imbalance has spiraled out of control, so the politicians have decided to blame all public employees (teachers, state workers, firefighters, police), whom they have screwed for the past decade. Much of the public supports the state legislature in this as well, partly because they have no idea how demanding teaching is, and partly because most people only care about their own pocketbooks, not the ramifications on other people. Great, huh?