Gov. Christie continues his attack on public education and the middle class with his proposal for a 33-item “toolkit,” designed for use by municipalities and school districts battered by his draconian budget cuts.
Taking direct aim at the men and women who work in our schools and provide other critical services, Christie’s proposed toolkit would undermine collective bargaining and civil service protections designed to prevent politicians from using school and municipal jobs as patronage gifts for their supporters.
The toolkit also attempts to artificially limit salaries and benefits for school and public employees to levels well below the rate of inflation in the economy, and well below the rate of growth in private sector compensation.
Christie claims the toolkit is necessary to keep property tax growth under control, but refuses to acknowledge that it is his deep cuts in state aid to schools and municipalities that put pressure on local taxpayers in the first place. Gov. Christie’s budget placed a priority on tax cuts for the wealthiest people in New Jersey. Now he wants to force middle class New Jersey resident to pay for the tax breaks enjoyed by millionaires.
As the Legislature considers the governor’s proposals, along with its own ideas for property tax relief this summer, NJEA will continue to lobby against additional changes which will harm students, their public schools, and the professionals who make those schools the best in the nation.