The price of apathy

Really? (0.00 / 0)

From what I've read, only surplus funds will be cut. Your district had 1/3rd of it's state funds in surplus?

"Where ever you go, there you are." - Buckaroo Bonzai

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by: William Weber (WjcW) @ Mon Feb 15, 2010 at 15:27:21 PM UTC

excuse me... (0.00 / 0)

1/3 of budget in surplus.

"Where ever you go, there you are." - Buckaroo Bonzai

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by: William Weber (WjcW) @ Mon Feb 15, 2010 at 15:28:35 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

The purpose of the surplus (0.00 / 0)

With teacher contracts being multi-year, the districts need to be able to fund increases and other deferred expenditures, hence just one example of the need to run a surplus. So when Christie reduces state aid, in the case of one school district, by about 30%, he is forcing the school district to tap into that surplus to meet its current expenditures. That will necessarily have the effect of forcing the school to find ways to make up the difference down the road (and not far down the road). Incidentally, at least in Somerset and Hunterdon counties, there is no discernible relationship between the cuts, state aid, and any district's surplus. Well, except for the fact that places like Bound Brook, North Plainfield, and Flemington will essentially have to gut their surplus to make up the loss of state aid, thus creating a huge problem for those school districts in meeting their contractual obligations in the coming year. That these are more urbanized school districts is surely a coincidence. ;-)

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by: Alex @ Tue Feb 16, 2010 at 01:33:51 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I said it before .... (0.00 / 0)

.... and I'll say it again:  "it's the media."

The Gannett media, in particular, made a deliberate effort to paint Corzine as a buffoon, without facts to support its imagery, for his entire term.

It's human nature for people -- including teachers -- to withhold support from someone they understand to be incompetent, even if they can't pinpoint why they see him as incompetent.

Corzine may not have had charisma and definitely didn't have the best team he should have had around him, but he was perhaps the most competent governor we've ever had.

And now you see the same media playing like crickets or making excuses for every broken campaign promise and all the secret meetings from Christie almost daily since the inauguration.  I feel sorry for the people who can't see the hypocrisy, because they are helpless to understand why things are what they are, and the media won't enlighten them.

The thing I find remarkable is that Christie isn't gunning for the massive fiscal abuses in the education system, which I think perturb most good teachers, too.  He's just going to whack off all the low-hanging fruit, teacher benefits, and pat himself on the back for cutting education spending.  It's not going to end the systemic abuses that truly rape the taxpayers.  But, he never said he would apply thought to that budget ax.  As you say, he vilified the teachers all along.

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by: Jim33 @ Mon Feb 15, 2010 at 22:54:41 PM UTC

the massive fiscal abuses in the education system (0.00 / 0)

What are these.  Please elaborate.  

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by: nsodano @ Tue Feb 16, 2010 at 02:06:19 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I saw the same thing... (0.00 / 0)

back when Whitman beat Florio--many teachers and other public employees were mad at Florio for increasing the income tax to fund the Quality Education Act and other public services.  In fact, one CWA state employee local actually endorsed Whitman.

My question to those folks then was, "Where do you think your salary money comes from?"  That's still the question.  Too often people want all these public services but don't want to pay for them.  And they don't recognize the source of the funds that put money into their pockets, their benefits, or their pensions.

And it was Whitman who screwed up the state pension fund...but so many people just don't remember that, do they!

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."  (Teddy Roosevelt)

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by: DottieG @ Tue Feb 16, 2010 at 15:33:07 PM UTC