WyBlog

Gov. Christie urges voters to reject the school budgets

On Tuesday April 20^th citizens will head to the polls across New Jersey to vote on their local school budgets. Annual budget increases are capped at 4%, but school boards tend to find "creative" ways around that, especially in light of the lavish raises and perks demanded by our state's teachers unions.

But Governor Chris Christie is determined to rein in excessive school spending. He's asked the teachers to accept a one year wage freeze and to contribute to their pension and health care costs too. For the most part the union has refused. At a time when many of us are barely hanging on to our jobs and the unemployment rate is hovering at over 12% the teachers unions are unwilling to share the pain.

So in the majority of districts where the union has not agreed to the wage freeze Gov. Christie is urging voters to reject the school budget. A rejected budget means more cuts must be made before it is submitted to the county superintendent and state Education Commissioner for review.

"I just don't see how citizens should want to support a budget where their teachers have not wanted to be part of the shared sacrifice," Christie said at a Princeton news conference.

"If school budgets are rejected and they come to this commissioner of education for relief, they're not going to find much relief," Christie said.

I wholeheartedly agree. Caldwell teachers thumbed their noses at the taxpayers and the result is a budget with a tax increase skirting the edge of the 4% cap while 49 employees are slated to get the ax.

Vote it down. Keep voting it down until the teachers get the message. If that means 40 kids in a class and no drama club, so be it. We'll all know who to blame. The NJEA can't keep telling us they're dedicated to the children when their message to the children is "fuck you, pay me."

Posted at 15:14 by Chris Wysocki   [/nj_politics]   Comments | Archived | Perm Link |
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