NJ Policy Institute Forces NJEA to Admit $120 Million Spent by Its Super PAC Was Political. When Will NJEA Admit It Was ALL Funded by Teachers’ Dues?

Kudos to New Jersey Policy Institute (NJPI) for forcing the NJEA to admit that it has not been disclosing the vast majority of its political spending. That’s the upshot of a press release from NJPI, which previously filed a complaint with the IRS claiming that the NJEA had not included spending by Garden State Forward, its 527 Super PAC, as political spending as required in Schedule C of its Form 990 annual tax filings. NJPI has amended its original complaint to include the NJEA’s tacit admission that it had not provided proper disclosure. It can now be stipulated that ALL of Garden State Forward’s $120 million in spending was political spending. Here is the NJEA’s most recent tax filing for tax year 2024 (9/1/24-8/31/25), which included the $33,307,809 spent by Garden State Forward in Schedule C:

This is a big change from previous filings. Note the absence of any mention of Garden State Forward in the NJEA’s filing for tax year 2023 (9/1/23-8/31/24).*

When will the NJEA admit to teachers that ALL of this was funded by their dues? We reiterate that ALL of the (previously undisclosed) $120 million of Garden State Forward political spending was funded by New Jersey teachers’ highest-in-the-nation dues, a fact that NJEA leadership has still not admitted to teachers. Now that the NJEA has finally been forced to admit that Garden State Forward spending was indeed political, when will leadership admit the truth to teachers about the use of their dues for political spending?

*The form incorrectly indicates that the Schedule C was for tax year 2022, but it was part of the NJEA’s tax year 2023 filing and reflects numbers from tax year 2023, not 2022.