One of the signs at today's rally in Paterson says it all
While Governor Christie was in Trenton blaming civil servants, teachers and the feds for all things budget-related, I joined parents and allies of public education in Paterson who gathered at City Hall for a rally and press conference lambasting the Governor for cuts to education, and demanding equality for the children of the Silk City.
He who opens a school door, closes a prison. - Victor Hugo
One of a series of protests planned by the Paterson Education Organizing Committee, this demonstration by concerned Paterson parents and allies was intended to galvanize support to fight back cuts to our public schools. Tops on the list: cuts to pre-school, art and music classes, and many other important programs that have been slashed since this generation of parents was in school.
If the energy in Trenton Friday is anything like the energy of this crowd today, we're in for a powerful message to the Governor: New Jersey is not going to balance the budget on the backs of hardworking public servants or our children.
The multi-partisan Women's Political Caucus of NJ has a free event coming up designed to prep people considering running for their own local school boards, with a panel of politicians whose point of entry into politics was their own local school board, Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver, Asw Mila Jasey & Bonnie Olt of the Evesham Twp School Board.
I do a news roundup every morning for Blue Jersey. We didn't used to have a heading for school issues. We do now. Everything in how we teach New Jersey kids is either under direct attack via Governor Christie, or in flux, with the undermining of public education itself, and budget slashes as two key reasons.
When we write our property tax checks - NJ average is $7,555 - the biggest chunk goes to schools. And yet, school elections are usually sleepy little affairs. Last year's were the exception; voters snapped to attention when Christie publicly urged voters to defeat local budgets if local teachers didn't agree to 1-year wage freezes. This was a month after Christie slashed state aid $820 million. And right before Christie bungled a $400 million federal grant that would have gone to Jersey schools if Christie didn't intentionally bungle it to avoid the appearance of working alongside NJ teachers toward a common goal. Right this minute, Gov. Christie is in Washington, about to go on stage for a major speech to American Enterprise Institute - standing room only right now - and his topic is how he took down NJ teachers and plans to remake NJ education.
We are all stakeholders in our public schools. Too few of us are actively engaged in decision-making for them. The March 1 event is free. Maybe you should be running for school board. Voter turnout is - unfortunately - so low that you might be surprised at your own electability if you get supporters' elbows around you.
Free info event is Tuesday night, March 1. Date to file as a candidate is March 8. Elections are April 27.
Faced with a $70 million budget gap, Mayor Cory Booker has proposed cost-cutting measures ranging from layoffs to shutting down city pools to wiping out the city's toilet paper budget.
But one important area for potential multi-million dollar savings hasn't gotten the attention it deserves: cutting the astronomical costs of police misconduct. Each year, Newark spends millions of dollars defending itself in lawsuits and paying out settlements to victims of police abuse.
The public hears little about police misconduct lawsuits because the vast majority of cases settle, and victims are typically forced to agree to remain silent as a condition of settlement. In addition, only settlements over $21,000 require approval from the city council. Public records about all settlements exist, but there is no central location, making it difficult for citizens who want to know the actual cost of police misconduct.
To uncover the true costs of police misconduct, the ACLU of New Jersey has combed court databases, meeting minutes and a battery of public records.
This is what we found: Between January 2008 and July 2010, there were 24 cases brought by citizens against the Newark Police that ended in settlement or arbitration. For the 19 cases those settlement amounts we could uncover, Newark paid out $1,041,617. That figure is only for cases that have already settled -- there are another 31 cases pending. And that same 18 months, at least 51 tort claims were filed against the police department - notices of lawsuits to come.
The cases describe nightmarish encounters with police: beatings, malicious prosecution, arrests of people videotaping police, homophobic slurs, recklessly driven police cars, and at least one sexual assault. Many of the officers named in the cases have a history of complaints against them, including one who has racked up 62 Internal Affairs complaints and another with 45.
Starting Monday, the ACLU-NJ will publish the details of a dozen such cases - settled and pending - brought by citizens against the Newark police on its website. We will release one case per day for the next twelve business days. Until now, most of these cases had never seen the light of day.
In the same 18-month period, the ACLU-NJ uncovered 11 settlements and one verdict in cases in which the Newark Police Department was sued by its own employees. In these cases, Newark had to pay a total of $2,691,503. Again, this covers only cases that have concluded; there are another nine cases filed by employees pending. The details of the cases that already settled, which the ACLU-NJ released in July, not only reveal the high financial costs of police recklessness, but the costs to officer morale and their professionalism on patrol.
When counting the costs, it's important to remember that the money paid to those who sue makes up just one part of the bill. Taxpayers also foot the enormous expense of municipal lawyers and outside law firms defending the city in these suits, as well as the legal fees the city must pay opposing counsel when it loses in court. In the case of Darren Nance, a terminated Newark Police officer who recently won a $600,000 verdict, the total cost of the city's defense, the plaintiff's legal fees and the calculation of interest owed to Nance will ultimately reach into the millions.
Make no mistake - this money comes from taxpayers. Newark doesn't have liability insurance. In fact, the settlement money comes from a general liability line in the city budget, not from the budget of the police department, so the Newark Police Department does not directly feel the financial pain of the pain its officers inflict.
And the financial costs are only the ones we can easily quantify; the steeper costs are incalculable. In the words of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, "If individuals' civil rights are compromised, public trust and confidence in the police are severely compromised." In other words, police misconduct severely jeopardizes community safety and erodes the trust officers need from the public to effectively fight crime.
Lawsuits and settlements can serve as teachable moments: they can reveal important information regarding dangerous patterns and practices in a department. Our review of lawsuits against Newark shows identical problems and behaviors spanning decades. When properly utilized, this data can provide police leadership the information they need to institute better training and accountability systems. Simply paying out damages will only lead to more abuse and more costs for the citizens of Newark.
Instead of trying to smooth over its mistakes with payouts, Newark should invest in reforms that can generate massive returns - in dollars, in lives, and in public confidence - allowing Newark to chart a path toward a new identity as a lean organization that will respect individual rights as capably as it protects public safety.
Until then, the citizens will involuntarily foot the bill for officers who violate our rights and for leaders who neglect the underlying problems that have plagued a floundering department for decades.
If you're in Collingswood anytime soon, go check out the library. Then glance up and marvel at the craftsmanship and dedication that went into the shiny brand new ceiling. And then spare a thought for the people who made that progress happen: the members of Garden State Equality, whose south Jersey headquarters is located a few short block away.
In light of Governor Chris Christie's drastic budget cuts to libraries, it's up to the community to "step up" and fill the gap caused by an administration whose values and priorities do not include things like local libraries or food banks. (Click the link. I dare you.)
In this photo, members of the gay rights group Garden State Equality give their our weekends to community service projects that recognize Gov. Christie's neglectful ways.
Deborah Howlett, the new President of New Jersey Policy Perspective appeared on News 12 Power and Politics and offered this take on the protests at the State House in Trenton on Saturday:If you missed Deborah's interview with us on Blue Jersey radio last week, you can listen to the archive here. Tell us in the comments what you thought of the rally and what you think should come next following the turnout.
As National Nurses' Week winds down, many nurses and healthcare workers are disheartened by the disconnect between nice ceremonies recognizing the importance of our work and the attacks on our working conditions and on the patient care we provide.
Nurses and health care workers fight to get healthcare right 365 days of the year. While lunches and ceremonies are nice, what we really want are the tools, the staff and the support we need to provide safe and effective care every day for our patients.
When our new Governor plays politics with our health care by recklessly slashing funding for programs like Family Care, family planning clinics, and prescription drug supports for seniors, he is making it harder for our patients to get the care they need, when they need it. That results in more uninsured patients in our crowded emergency rooms, or with patients sicker when they get to their doctor or hospital, because they couldn't afford their necessary medications.
I would also like to share a persynal story about how I became active in higher education advocacy. In the Fall semester of my junior year at Ramapo College way back in 2005, I made the mistake of voting for Jon Corzine in the gubernatorial election (I corrected that by voting for Dagget in 2009, and I still have his bumper sticker on my car as a repudiation of Trenton politics)
Anyway, in Spring 2006, Corzine announced massive budget cuts to higher education and schools were mobilizing. However, my school was lazy to mobilize, due to the discouragement of these actions by our alternate student trustee, Steve Bloom. He was basically resigned to the idea that the state was in fiscal trouble and thus, strong armed members of student government as well as other groups on campus to not go along with me. Unphased, I went down to Trenton and was the only representative from my campus.
I was invited to speak about something close to my heart. At the beginning of the academic year, I joined the nascent student-run recycling program at Ramapo, and a couple of months later, spearheaded an expansion into 3 dorms (we decided to do door-to-door because the recycling bins in the trashroom were being contaminated constantly, so much that I put up flyers telling students to instead put their recycling out in front of the doors once a week). Well, we had plans for expansion when these budget cuts happened, and our supervisor, Carmela, who was a sustainability coordinator, was being 86ed by the administration. I had a chance to talk about this unique program, and at the end, Assemblypersyn Diegnan shook my hand and complimented my story (as well as the bandana I was wearing).
So, even if you are not a college student or public school teacher, I suggest you get out and support education.
After reading this Star Ledger article:
(http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/04/poll_finds_new_jerseyans_favor.html)
I want to ask, what municipalities would YOU consolidate.
Me, I would have all donut-hole municipalities absorb the surrounding townships, with the result being a municipality named after the donut-hole, if at all possible.
For example:
Flemington Borough + Raritan Township = Flemington Township
Princeton Borough + Princeton Township = Princeton City
Burlington City + Burlington Township = Burlington City
Bordentown Township + Bordentown City = Bordentown Town
And in Camden County, I'd resurrect the old Union Township, merge Pennsauken with Merchantville, make all the areas between Union Township, Cherry Hill, Pennsauken, and Camden as Audubon City, merge Berlin Borough with Berlin Township to become Berlin City, merge Voorhees Township with Gibbsboro to become Gibbsboro Town, merge Chesilhurst with Winslow, and the areas surrounded by Gloucester Township, Union Township Voorhees Township, and Winslow Township should become Clementon Township.
And how about merging the Wildwoods and the Amboys.
I am an ally of music and arts, having known (and currently knowing) many people in the music and arts program. However, I wish to remain objective when I say that sports should be higher on the chopping block than music and arts. Let's take a look at the two
-Music and Arts are legitimate degree programs in many colleges, which yield many career opportunities and is a good social investment which gives a lot back to the economy.
-Sports however, may get you a scholarship to college and may be a good extracurricular sport, but you do not get a degree based on scoring points for your team.
Of course, we may need statewide action for these districts to get their priorities straight. Like administrative streamlining to prevent harm to teachers, we may need policies which encourage taking into consideration the social investments of extracurricular activities in determining priorities for funding of such activities.
One such idea, capping spending on extracurricular athletics at 0.5% (that's 1/2 of 1%) of the total budget for the district.
The election is not over yet, but it's safe to say many school districts will have deep cuts in funding. However, if teachers get fired, class sizes swell, and programs get cut, we can't always blame Christie. True, the state's aid towards schools are being cut and many budgets will be voted down, but the people who are responsible for balancing the school's budget are none other than THE SCHOOL BOARDS. These are the people who will be deciding the priorities, and these are the people who should be held accountable the most. Therefore, I propose these ideas be implemented before any cuts towards teachers, extracurricular activities, or specialized services:
Well, its that time of year again! That time when New Jerseyans vote on their budget, and coincidentally, budget day is 420!!! So after you vote on your budget, roll up a fattie, because it will be the best way to kill the pain of Christie's assault on the middle class.
Recently, I found out my local 7-12 education authority, Central Regional SD in Bayville, NJ, stands to lose a total of $2,071,000; both from Christie's municipal aid cuts as well as money lost from "reserve". Although these cuts to municipal aid are necessary for the fiscal health of the state, Christie does not do anything to proactively control administrative costs and promote long term financial sustainability without hurting teachers or causing class sizes to explode (which would have the unintended consequences of more special education related lawsuits and costly out of district placements). Thus, I propose the below recommendations for reducing waste at my alma mater.
All the following sourced from Central Regional's budget, as well as from the educational staff search from the Asbury Park Press:
Bret Schundler is really going to be in the dog house with the Govenor. First on Monday testifying before the Senate Budget committee, he disagreed with the Governor and said voters should support their school budgets. This was a direct contradiction to the Governor's statement the day before. Now yesterday, testifying before the Assembly budget committee, Schundler acknowledged that after school districts adsorb the cuts from the administration, taxpayers will see an increase in their property taxes:
"Local property taxpayers are being asked by school districts to help also, and by the time this year's school budgets are finalized, we will likely see school property taxes throughout New Jersey up by about 3 to 4 percent. That's a much smaller year-to-year increase than has been typical in the past 10 years."
But, But, I thought they wouldn't sign a budget that raised taxes? Oh that's right, they're making other people take responsibility for it. And that's just what he's acknowledging as the average increase. Some areas may see even larger property tax increases as aid losses are exempt from the 4% cap. We'll see how it all shakes out next Tuesday when voters head to the polls. Take our poll below and let us know if you will be supporting your school budget.
Listening to the budget hearings was pretty interesting with some eye opening exchanges. We learned from the OLS Budget Director that the full budget is still not available online:
"The details of this budget have become available at a slower pace, with less elaboration and much later than in any previous year," Rosen said.
"The delays have been extraordinary, beyond what I would have expected," Rosen said.
You can read his full testimony here. Portions of the detailed budget were just put online in the 24 hours before the budget hearing. That's more than 3 weeks after the budget address, which was delivered later than usual already. In fact, there is this note on the budget page:
THIS PUBLICATION IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION AND SECTIONS WILL BE AVAILABLE UPON COMPLETION
With analysts of the budget nearly a month behind, very little information available, revenues continuing to come in lower than projected, an extension in filing deadlines for disaster areas and a fundamental disagreement on how to fix the problems we face, you wonder how they will pass a budget on time. We're going to see a good deal of posturing between now and then, but circumstances may also impact the rhetoric. The first indicator of how the public truly is reacting to what is going on will be the votes on school budgets. That may change the landscape once again as people see just how bad the tax increases will be to go along with the cuts they are facing.
Recently, I found out that Mahwah, home to Ramapo College (my alma mater), passed a resolution asking for a $100 fee for full time students (half for part time) to support their police, fire, etc. They were joined by other college towns such as Wayne and Montclair.
Of all the stupid ideas that have been churned out by the greedy municipalities this one is the worst. Although I graduated from Ramapo three years ago, I feel like future generations are being jerked around by municipal greed.
In fact, college students have been jerked around by municipalities for many years. Maybe if we didn't have to subsidize all these 566 municipalities (489 of which have their own police force), and 616 school districts, maybe we'd have some money to create a permanent trust fund for the appropriate funding of our college campuses.
When Governor Corzine shut down the state government 4 years ago, there was one item that was being ignored by the media, and that was the cuts to education. Instead, the North/Central Jersey faction of the Democratic Party and the South Jersey faction of the Democratic Party started fighting over whether they should allocate half or whole of the sales tax increase, respectively, towards these perverse subsidies and they shut down the state. Where were the people that believed that maybe all of the sales tax increase (instead of the half proposed by the North/Central faction) should go to debt reduction, because THAT'S WHY WE RAISED THE SALES TAX TO BEGIN WITH.
Everyone talks about making sacrifices, how come the municipalities aren't doing the same.
I was watching over Christie's appointments, when I found out Yudin was tapped to head the NJSEA and I was thinking, why not, instead of having someone to head the NJSEA, we eliminate it altogether.
Sports and exhibitions/conventions are a high revenue industry, and the state need not, and should not, be in the business of bread and circuses, just like the state of Pennsylvania should not be in the business of selling wine & spirits
My proposal:
1. Eliminate the NJ Sports and Exhibition Authority
2. Ban the use of tax revenues to construct stadiums or convention centers.
This is a good resource for why public funding of stadiums is a boondoggle.
But then again, I'm not the athletic type, so I have no stake in seeing the continued perverse subsidies of something that could just as easily be left to the private sector.
Trenton Mayor Doug Palmer has not been shy about his disapproval for the Governor's plans to cut back on state aid. Trenton is seeing $43 million in aid cut and we get this from the Mayor about what the situation is:
"Right now it looks pretty bad. We've been put in a position where we are just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic and Gov. Christie is an iceberg coming right at us,"
Palmer says the money is owed to the city because they have to pay their rent. The Governor is saying they have to go through the process to compete for aid. I'l like to be able to tell my mortgage company that they have to go through a process to compete for my money.
One day, I was thinking about all the cuts to higher education that have been made over these last few years, and I was wondering, we have a pension trust fund, we have a transportation trust fund, why don't we have a higher ed trust fund???
Proposal:
The higher ed trust fund will use certain dedicated revenue sources, as well as state and federal funding at the discretion of the government to fund only the following items: funding of staff and faculty, course offerings, lab equipment, computer systems, libraries, facility upkeep, specialized services and coops/internships.
This narrow scope shall insure that the monies only go to the big ticket yet important items in education. All other expenses for colleges (ie: administration) must be paid out of the general fund, and no funding can be used for college sports.
The dedicated sources of funding for the trust fund shall be as follows:
35% of all income tax revenues
90% of all lottery revenues
50% of all corporate taxes
Any other state and federal funding
It is projected that this trust fund alone could generate three to four times the revenues of the current state higher education budget in its entirety, which should be used to slash the cost of tuition for in-state students, if not eliminate it altogether.
Furthermore, I would recommend that the trust fund receive comparable protections from raids as the Social Security Trust Fund has. We also may need a constitutional amendment illustrating the designated funding sources and their designated purposes.
Once upon a time, there was a man named Ronald Reagan. After many years of social programs being well funded by taxes on the rich, Reagan decided he had a different idea of how he was going to do things, because after all, he was the rugged individualist spreading his faux-populism around and boiling economic and foreign policy down to cowboy utterances
He decided to institute a policy called Reaganomics, or in other words, "trickle down economics". The idea behind this economic theory was that tax cuts without strings attached towards the top end could create jobs; because, after all, corporations could be trusted to create jobs with that tax cut instead of, say, spending that money on a trip to the Cayman Islands, where one will stay 7 days and 6 nights at the top resorts and eat the finest food, and see the sights in luxury, and maybe sometime in between, deposit some money in that secret account.
The result was predictable: the best analogy for it would be the rich kids getting lots of presents each in the hope that some of those presents would trickle down to the less fortunate, and the parental unit turned a blind eye as they used all the toys for themselves.
Now, flash forward nearly 30 years later. New Jersey, after many failed policies, decided to elect the no-nonsense prosecutor Chris Christie, who was the proponent of Reagan-esque economic philosophies. He decided that he was going to take a hatchet to school aid much like Reagan took a hatchet to taxes on the upper class. Problem is, it relies on the same trust Reagan put to the higher ups. Reagan trusted that the higher ups would create jobs with their tax cuts, and Christie is hoping that the higher ups will cut administrators before teachers with these municipal aid cuts, which as we all know, the "paraprofessionals" will keep their job, while teachers are cut and class size explodes.
If Reagan and Christie had attached more strings to their actions, then they could have made more sense. If Reagan had made his tax cuts conditional on job creation, and if Christie had put meaningful caps on administrative positions and salaries, it could have made sense.
The moral of the story is, you can't use a hatchet where you need a scalpel!!!
Let me just say that as a supporter of free speech, we all believe that you have the right to express your opinions, even if we disagree with them. However, you are attending a public college, and there are some things you need to know.
A public college, by definition, is one in which part of tuition is defrayed by tax dollars. Yes, taxes, the thing you constantly harp about, and government, in turn, spends money on the costs to run the universities. Yes, government spending, the thing that, with exception of declaring war on the entire world even without the funds to cover it, you so vehemently oppose, so much so that you are willing to don 18th century fashion, co-opt a historical event that was relatively radical, and scream insults about how the current president is a Muslimnazicommunistnoncitizenrapistsocialistclowncanadianindonesianafricanwitchdoctorracisttrope, and about how Barney Frank is going to make your kids wear assless chaps to school or how zombie Ted Kennedy is going to tax your lemonade stand and force you to wait 12 months to see your gummint-appointed doctor. But I digress. The point is, since you people are all about rugged individualism and pulling oneself up by the bootstraps, why are you attending college on other people's dimes.
Furthermore, in New Jersey, as well as across America, cuts to higher education are the latest trend, along with Taylor Swift and the choking game. Both parties are as guilty of cutting higher education (and some people from both parties are good on higher ed, such as the all-Republican delegation of New Jersey's Legislative District 40 who opposed Democrat Jon Corzine's higher ed cuts), although Republicans, conservatives, and libertarians tend to be philosophically more opposed to higher ed funding. We dunno why you conservatives/libertarians decided to attend a public college like this, maybe you wanted to make a wise investment or maybe you couldn't afford a private institution. However, we find it funny that the average college Republican wouldn't give a rat's patootie if Governor Christie cut higher ed funding; why are you are not working within the party to insure higher ed gets funded???
These things being said, We would hereby ask all college conservatives and libertarians to transfer out of this college and continue their educational studies at a private institution . Now, we are not Stalinists, as you people seem to portray those on the left as, and we are not going to force you to leave this campus, that's a decision you have to make. But if you are to put your bootstrap fetish where your mouth is and take personal responsibility for your education, maybe you should consider going to an institution not funded by tax dollars. We cannot tell you to stop your education at this college, but we will forever call you out for being hypocrites you are. And yes, there are conservative professors on campus, and no, they aren't being mass fired for their beliefs, your psychosis and faux-populist temper tantrums and white guy concerns are unsubstantiated.
Also, if you are one of those conservatives who are cantankerously pro-war at the expense of college education, might I suggest a career in the armed forces?? Don't be a chickenhawk, go to your local recruitment centre and sign up. Of course, most likely than not, you believe that only poor people of colour should be recruited. When you are being shot at, you will wish you were back at your taxpayer funded college campus screaming into the megaphone about keeping your government hands off our public colleges.
With loving regards,
Progressives and middle-class, working-class people at college campuses!!!
