Court Ruling Keeps Montclair Schools Closed. NJEA VP Spiller Agrees but Where Is Mayor Spiller?
Posted On02/15/2021 byThe Montclair Local reports that a Chancery Court has denied a preliminary injunction that would have forced Montclair teachers to end their boycott of the Montclair school district’s reopening plan. This means that Montclair schools will remain all-remote at least until March 9, when the court will hold its next hearing. Too bad for Superintendent…Read More
In Montclair, with the “Teachers Union on Three Sides of the Table,” Schools Remain Closed
Posted On02/11/2021 byDerrell Bradford captures the situation in Montclair perfectly in his excellent piece for Eduction Next, “A Rolling Teacher Strike Is Why Schools Are Closed.” With NJEA VP Sean Spiller as a mayor who can appoint the school board, the teacher union’s influence does indeed reach three sides of the bargaining table. The real-world impact…Read More
Jersey Jazzman Provides Sound Research for Fordham Institute. Why Not for NJ Policy Perspective?
Posted On02/10/2021 byMark Weber (a.k.a., Jersey Jazzman) authored a recent report for the Fordham Institute that showed that, contrary to what is commonly assumed, charter schools do not drain money away from traditional school districts. This is quite a surprise coming from Weber, given that he and his usual employer, New Jersey Policy Perspective (NJPP), have consistently…Read More
Under Gov. Murphy: Property Taxes UP, Income Taxes UP, Corporate Taxes UP, Gas Taxes UP
Posted On02/09/2021 byNJ Spotlight reports that NJ property taxes were up 1.8% from 2019 to 2020. BuryPensions calculates that they actually rose 2.4%. In any event, they are up. But so were income taxes on the wealthy, corporate taxes and gas taxes. The bottom line is that under Gov. Murphy, taxes are UP, UP, UP and UP….Read More
What a Shame! It’s Final: Mondelez Is Leaving NJ and 600 Jobs Are Gone
Posted On02/05/2021 byCredit to BuryPensions for catching this. The Mondelez (owner of Nabisco) plant in Fair Lawn is shutting down. That’s 600 jobs that disappear with it. What a shame. NJ citizens must remember that NJ has had the worst tax climate for businesses in the nation FOR SEVEN STRAIGHT YEARS, and that Gov. Murphy just raised…Read More
Where do you stand on vaccinations for Montclair teachers, VP/Mayor Spiller?
Posted On02/04/2021 byThere has been a lot of reporting on the Montclair schools re-opening dispute, but that the press has neglected to ask NJEA Vice president/Montclair Mayor Sean Spiller a very important question: where does he stand on vaccinations for teachers? As Sunlight detailed in its recent report “CONFLICT OF INTEREST: Mayor Spiller Sides with His Union…Read More
Rather than Address His Conflicts of Interest, Spiller Hurls Mud and Falsehoods (Again).
Posted On02/02/2021 bySunlight is able to use the same headline as it did last May during the mayoral election because NJEA Vice President/Montclair Mayor Sean Spiller is once again resorting to hurling mud and falsehoods in order to deflect attention away from his all-too-real, ongoing conflict of interest. Recall that last May, after Sunlight’s report detailed candidate…Read More
WalletHub: New Jersey WORST State for Retirement Due to High Cost of Living
Posted On01/26/2021 byWalletHub is out with its annual “Best States to Retire” and New Jersey ranks dead last in the nation. The primary reason is that NJ is dead last in “Affordability” (NJ is 35th for “Quality of Life” and 33rd for “Healthcare”). The bottom ten for affordability are Maryland, Oregon, Washington, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine, Connecticut,…Read More
NJ Economy Is Underperforming Again: 350,000 Fewer Jobs than Before Pandemic
Posted On01/25/2021 byThanks to the Garden State Initiative (GSI) for keeping an eye on NJ’s employment numbers. Altogether, NJ’s January jobs numbers were not good: NJ’s unemployment rate was 7.6%, almost a full percentage point higher than the national average of 6.7%. Even worse, NJ’s unemployment rate stands at 7.6% only because 93,000 New Jersey’s dropped out…Read More
Rather Than Borrow Money and Invest in Risky Assets to Juice Returns, NJ Should Reform Its Public Pension System
Posted On01/22/2021 byWe’re going to get a little wonkish here and delve into the mechanics of pensions because NJ’s public pensions are a disaster waiting to happen. At 38%, they are the worst funded public pensions in the nation. Absent a federal bailout, NJ is going to hit a budgetary wall in the relatively near future. In…Read More