We’ll admit it.  We were wrong.  We were wrong when we reported that former-NJEA Executive Director Ed Richardson was paid $9.3 million over his 13 years as a NJEA exec, or an average of $716,259 a year.  It turns out that we mistakenly understated Richardson’s compensation.

It is true that, according to the IRS, Richardson was paid $9.3 million as a NJEA exec.  But Richardson was not an NJEA exec for 13 years.  He only worked as a NJEA exec from 2008 to 2018, or 11 years.  As seen in the chart below, Richardson’s $3,363,926 in compensation for 2019 and 2020 was paid to him as a former executive director.  That is, Richardson had retired and was not working as a NJEA exec in 2019 and 2020.

So, the reality is that Richardson was paid $9.3 million over 11 years of service as a NJEA exec, or $846,488 a year.  In the words of Tom Moran, editor of the Star-Ledger, that’s “Wall Street” compensation.

All of this was paid for by New Jersey teachers’ highest-in-the-nation dues.  For the record, during Richardson’s tenure as a NJEA officer, the average New Jersey teacher made less than 1/10th of Richardson’s $846,488 a year.

These teachers deserve the truth about how their dues were being spent, but NJEA leadership has never told teachers about this outrageous, Wall Street-level compensation.  Once again, NJEA leadership has a lot to answer for.