Is the NJEA Secretary-Treasurer Pushing Teachers to Support a Run for Governor by NJEA President Spiller?

Looks like the NJEA is all-in for President Sean Spiller’s personal political career.

We’ve heard multiple reports that NJEA Secretary-Treasurer Petal Robertson is out in the field pushing teachers to support Spiller for governor.  The NJEA is currently conducting a campaign to get members to become “Pension Justice Advocates,” and reportedly the hook for teachers to support a Spiller candidacy is that he will help them win “Pension Justice.”  The propriety of campaigning on public property aside, Robertson’s pushing a Spiller candidacy would indicate even more NJEA resources being used to support Spiller’s personal political career, above and beyond the $2 million already given to Spiller’s Super PAC.   ALL of this is funded by teachers’ regular dues without their knowledge or consent. Spiller is a compromised political figure and remains under the shadow of a criminal investigation. Would New Jersey teachers approve of this use of their highest-in-the-nation dues?

Sunlight received a tip on its Facebook page that NJEA Secretary-Treasurer Petal Robertson was at Montclair High School urging teachers to support a gubernatorial run by NJEA President Sean Spiller.  We later learned from a Montclair friend that Robertson was using “Pension Justice” as the tool to push teachers to support Spiller.  NJEdReport then reported that a teacher had corroborated this and that Robertson was also headed to Irvington (and perhaps East Orange as well).

The NJEA is currently conducting a campaign urging teachers to become “Pension Justice Advocates.”  It is true that since 2011, new New Jersey teachers have been enrolled in a less generous pension plan (Tier 5), especially when compared to NJEA leadership’s gold-plated (with a 2.5% COLA) and over-funded pension plan.  Of course, the NJEA prefers to keep silent about the significant role it played in underfunding the teachers pension plan in the 1990s and 2000s, which threatened its solvency and led to the benefit reductions the NJEA is complaining about now.

What’s new to us is that Robertson is apparently using “Pension Justice” as a hook to drum up teachers’ support for a Spiller gubernatorial run.  This raises four major issues:

1. Per NJEdReport, campaigning on public property is prohibited by both state law and school policy, so Robertson appears to be running afoul of that.
2. Robertson’s campaigning for Spiller looks like an additional use of NJEA resources to support Spiller’s personal political ambitions, above and beyond the $2 million the NJEA has already given to Spiller’s Super PAC, Protecting Our Democracy.
3. Spiller is a compromised political figure.  As a councilman, Spiller was famously removed from a town position by a Superior Court for conflict of interest. Montclair recently had to settle a whistleblower lawsuit against Mayor Spiller (and the town council) for $1.25 million. Mayor Spiller also pleaded his 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination over 400 times due to potential liability for misusing state health benefits, and a state criminal investigation is reportedly on-going.  The word around Montclair is that Spiller chose not to run for re-election because he would have lost badly.
4. ALL of this use of NJEA resources and money to support Spiller’s personal career is funded by teachers’ regular dues — without their knowledge and therefore without their consent.  Because NJEA leadership (including Spiller) has hidden the existence of the NJEA Super PAC, Garden State Forward, most teachers have no idea their regular dues are being used to support Spiller’s personal political career.  Nor would they expect that their Secretary-Treasurer was campaigning for him.

Sunlight asks again: if New Jersey teachers knew the truth about their regular dues being used to support the compromised Spiller’s personal ambitions, would they consent to it?  We don’t know because NJEA leadership (including Spiller) hides the truth from them.  New Jersey teachers deserve better.