NJEA Leadership Is Silent While President Sean Spiller Uses Teachers’ Regular Dues to Fund His Personal Political Career — Without Their Consent

NJEA President Sean Spiller is all about democracy when it comes to his ads promoting his personal political career.  As New Jersey Globe reports, Spiller’s personal Super PAC, Protecting Our Democracy, has launched a $500,000 media campaign “touting the virtues of democracy,” with Spiller front and center.  But Spiller’s concept of democracy apparently does not extend to the organization he leads.  Despite his troubled tenure as Montclair mayor and his on-going legal woes, Spiller’s continues to use New Jersey teachers’ highest-in-the-nation, regular dues to fund his massive ad campaign  — without their knowledge or consent.  That’s not democratic at all.

As Sunlight has amply documented, Spiller is a compromised politician.  His Montclair political career has been plagued by controversy and discontent.  His serial conflicts of interests have led to his removal from a town position by a Superior Court and a successful referendum to strip Spiller of the power to appoint the school board.  When the Montclair Education Association (part of the NJEA) boycotted Superintendent Ponds’ plan to re-open schools during the pandemic, Spiller sided with his union and kept schools closed, much to the detriment of Montclair school kids.  It surprised no one in Montclair when Spiller announced that he would not seek re-election as mayor.

On top of all this, Spiller is currently the subject of a whistleblower lawsuit by Montclair’s former-CFO.  The suit alleges that Spiller improperly gained health benefit coverage from the town and then retaliated against the CFO when she raised the issue.  With three officials in Wildwood already under criminal indictment for similar transgressions, Spiller reportedly pled his 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination over 400 times in his deposition for the lawsuit.  On top of that, now it looks like Spiller has used his official powers to retaliate against a town activist who has been critical of him.

And yet the compromised Spiller continues to use New Jersey teachers’ highest-in-the-nation dues to fund his personal political career.  As the Globe notes, Spiller is “mulling a bid for the Democratic nomination for governor in 2025,” and his Super PAC, Protecting Our Democracy, and its massive ad campaign are clearly intended to raise Spiller’s profile among New Jersey voters.  Despite Spiller’s blatant conflict of interest, the NJEA proudly announced that it was the “founding donor” of Protecting Our Democracy and behind a “substantial seven-figure” multi-media campaign in support of Spiller.  Protecting Our Democracy is almost certainly funded by the NJEA’s Super PAC, Garden State Forward, which is funded by teachers’ regular dues as directed by NJEA leadership in what can only be described as an opaque process.  The bottom line is that millions of teachers’ dues are being used to fund Spiller’s personal political career.

Even worse, NJEA leadership has deliberately hid the existence of Garden State Forward from the very teachers who fund it.  A search of the NJEA’s website for “Garden State Forward” provides this result: “Sorry, but nothing matched your search terms. Please try again with different keywords.”  As we detailed in our recent report (p. 5-6), Garden State Forward has never been mentioned in the NJEA’s monthly magazine for teachers, NJEA Review.  Nor has it been mentioned in the NJEA’s annual budget summary, where its expenditures have been disguised as “Organizational Projects.”  Nor has it ever been mentioned in the NJEA Delegate Assembly minutes provided to teachers.  As a (deliberate) result, most teachers do not know Garden State Forward exists, let alone that they are funding it.

All of which means that NJEA President Spiller is using millions of his members’ regular dues to pay for his personal political career without their knowledge and therefore without their consent. It’s another blatant conflict of interest in a political career that has been marked by serial conflicts of interest, and this time it’s New Jersey teachers who are paying the price.

Where is NJEA leadership on this issue?  Are there no officers who object to this use of teachers’ dues?  If they are silent — and they are indeed silent — then they are complicit.  Who is speaking up for teachers?  No one.  That’s not democratic at all.