NJEA Rebuke? Non-Endorsed Sean Spiller Flames Out in His Run for NEA President. Teachers Foot the Bill – Again.

We hope this is the last time we write about former-NJEA President Sean Spiller. Spiller may seem like old news: after all, his scandalous, dues-funded run for governor failed over a year ago and he left his NJEA office shortly thereafter. But Spiller being Spiller, his overweening political ambitions took hold and he decided to run for president of the NJEA’s parent, the National Education Association (NEA). Reprising his disastrous performance in the 2025 Democratic gubernatorial primary, Spiller finished a distant third in the race with a mere 18% of the vote. In and of itself, Spiller’s run for NEA president would not concern us, but it was the manner in which it transpired that reminded us of Spiller’s scandal-plagued political career — almost entirely funded by New Jersey teachers’ highest-in-the-nation dues.

Scandal-plagued political career. As Sunlight’s readers know, Spiller has had a scandal-plagued political career. As a councilman, he was removed from the Montclair Board of School Estimates by a Superior Court judge due to his blatant conflict of interest. As mayor, Spiller was sued by a whistleblower for misusing state health benefits and then retaliating, which Montclair settled for $1.25 million (of taxpayer dollars). Spiller came under criminal investigation and had to plead the Fifth before his pals Gov. Murphy and AG Platkin ran out the clock. Then, having become unelectable in Montclair, Spiller ran for governor and, as NJEA President, he oversaw the covert diversion of $45 million of members’ regular dues to back his candidacy. He ended up fifth out of six with a mere 10% of the vote, profligately wasting over $500 of dues per vote.

Run for the NEA presidency. Having destroyed his political prospects in New Jersey, Spiller’s overweening political ambitions drove him to run for the presidency of the NEA. According Politico‘s Matt Friedman’s excellent take on it, Spiller finished third out of four with a mere 17.9% of the vote (the winner got 50.3%). But two interesting facts emerged:

• Rebuke: The NJEA delegation did NOT endorse Spiller. The NJEA delegation to the NEA convention did not endorse Spiller. Looks like current NJEA leadership very much wants everyone to forget Spiller along with current leadership’s complicity in the $45 million scandal. As Politico‘s Friedman put it: “I don’t know how to take that as anything but a rebuke to their recently departed president.”
• Spiller was on a (very likely) generously paid sabbatical during his run. Continuing his decade-plus pattern of using teachers’ dues to fund his personal political ambitions, the New Jersey Globe reported that Spiller was on sabbatical during his run for NEA president. Given the NJEA’s history of exceptionally generous compensation for its executives, we would hazard to guess that it was a generously paid sabbatical. For the record, over his ten years as a NJEA officer (2013-23), Spiller was paid $3.8 million in total compensation, including $577,305 as president in 2023 (the most recent filing). We imagine Spiller was compensated something similar in his sabbatical year, which gave him the wherewithal to make a run for the NEA presidency. We also wonder if any NJEA funds were involved …

Once again, teachers are footing the bill for Spiller’s personal political ambitions. Of course, ALL $3.8 million (and counting) of Spiller’s compensation as a NJEA officer was paid for by New Jersey teachers’ highest-in-the-nation dues. The same goes for any compensation during Spiller’s sabbatical, which almost certainly ran into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. We imagine the teachers, who make an average of $83,000 a year and have been forced to fund Spiller’s personal political ambitions for over a decade, would very much like to have a paid sabbatical worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Small wonder current leadership wants everyone to forget about Spiller.

One thing is for sure: Spiller is not going back to being a teacher in Wayne.