Big Questions About the $40 Million in Teacher Dues Being Spent on Spiller’s Vanity Run. Would Teachers Prefer a $340 Rebate?

You can’t make this stuff up.  NJEA Vice President Steve Beatty and Secretary-Treasurer Petal Roberston were in New Jersey Globe today saying they support NJEA President Sean Spiller for governor because he “put[s] working people first.” Spiller is in NJ.com saying the same thing. This is laughable. According to Spiller and his NJEA cronies, teachers are the quintessential “working people,” yet they have no problem appropriating $40 million* of teachers’ hard-earned dues for Spiller’s vanity run for governor  — without teachers’ knowledge or consent.  We wonder if hard-working teachers would vote for some other use of their $40 million.

The Trentonian‘s Jeff Edelstein has an idea. In his article “New Jersey Teachers Bankroll $40 Million Man,” he calculates that if that money were rebated to teachers rather than spent on Spiller’s personal ambitions, it would amount to a $340 rebate to their highest-in-the-nation, $1,082 NJEA dues.**  $340 is a lot of money for “working people” like teachers, especially younger ones. So along with Edelstein, we ask: if teachers had a choice, would they prefer the $340 rebate?

Too bad they don’t have a choice, thanks to Spiller, Beatty, and Robertson.

Here’s how the appropriated $40 million of teachers dues has been spent, and it is being spent lavishly.  According to ELEC, NJEA-funded, pro-Spiller Super PAC Working New Jersey spent $37.5 million through May 30, 2025.  Here are the largest expenditures:

1. $18.1 million to Bully Pulpit Interactive: Run by Biden Communications Director Ben LaBolt, this is likely the ads we have seen on TV, including the ones during the recent NBA playoffs. Nice payday for Mr. LaBolt.
2. $8.3 million to AP Consulting Firm: This one is a head-scratcher.  Their Facebook page lists accounting services, tax preparation, insurance, translations, airline tickets, divorce, and event promotion. It’s owned by Ariagna Perello, apparently the former-president of the Newark school board.  It’s run out of a house on North 5th St. in Newark.  We cannot discern the expertise that would justify $8.3 million in payments.  Perhaps some intrepid reporter can find out.
3. $5.3 million to Ourso Beychok: This is for all the Spiller mailers that have blanketed the state.  We’re told that a rule of thumb is $1 per piece of mail, so that’s 5.3 million pieces of Spiller mail sent around the state. That’s a lot of mail.
4. $2 million to Wilkins Media: This is all the Spiller billboards around the state.  They don’t come cheap.
5. $395,000 to Ryegrass LLC: a California-based internet/media firm. We assume that’s digital ads.
6. $345,000 to Varoga & Associates: This is Craig Varoga’s firm. Varoga is the Deputy Treasurer of Working New Jersey and the “veteran consultant who runs WNJ.”  Varoga’s first payment was 8/30/24 and his last 4/17/25, so $345,000 is a handsome sum for nine months of work.

What about the payments to Ed Richardson and the other former-NJEA officers? In addition to the odd $8.3 payments to AP Consulting, we have another big question: Where are the payments to former-NJEA officers Ed Richardson, Steve Wollmer, and Gayl Sheppard, who along with Varoga run Working New Jersey?  Recall that former-NJEA Executive Director Richardson became a multimillionaire, taking in a staggering $9.3 million, or $846,000 a year for 11 years.  That’s ALL from teachers’ dues, too.  Now he’s back at the dues-funded till.  How much are they getting paid?  Again, perhaps some intrepid reporter can ask Working New Jersey.

So it’s more hypocrisy from Spiller and more questions for New Jersey teachers.  And two questions from Sunlight: what were the $8.3 million in payments to AP Consulting, and what are the former-NJEA officers getting paid?

*It’s actually $45 million: $40 million to Working New Jersey, and previously $5 million to Protecting Our Democracy. Both are pro-Spiller Super PACs funded solely by the NJEA’s Super PAC, Garden State Forward.

**By our reckoning, Edelstein got it right. Here’s our math:

• NJEA Membership Dues Revenue: $128,360,880***
• Garden State Forward payments to Working New Jersey: $40,000,000
• $40 million/$128.4 million = 31.2%
• 2024-2025 NJEA full-time dues: $1,082
• 31.2% x $1,082 = $338

***Projected dues revenues for FY2024 (9/1/23-8/31/24) in NJEA Budget Summary published in the September 2024 issue of NJEA Review.  This number would reflect what the NJEA had on-hand for Spiller’s primary run.  The last actual number was $125,385,821 for FY2023.