The $45 Million Spiller Debacle Comes Back to Haunt Teachers: the NJEA’s Pension Campaign Fails in Lame Duck

The ghost of Sean Spiller continues to haunt New Jersey teachers. That’s mostly because the new NJEA bosses are the same as the old NJEA bosses: both President Steve Beatty and Vice President Petal Robertson were elected officers when Spiller was president and played an active role in Spiller’s scandalous run for governor. Spiller’s long-shot, vanity run was a lose-lose for teachers: leadership wasted $45 million of dues on Spiller’s candidacy — which teachers did not support — and weakened the NJEA’s political clout in Trenton exactly when it was needed for a lame-duck push to improve teachers’ pensions — which teachers did support. The lame-duck session and co-opted Governor Phil Murphy have now come and gone, and no pension bills were passed. New NJEA leadership has a lot to answer for but they continue to hide the truth from teachers.

The Spiller debacle was a lose-lose for teachers. As Sunlight documented in its recent report, the Spiller debacle was a lose-lose for teachers: Not only did NJEA leadership waste $45 million of teachers’ highest-in-the-nation dues on Spiller’s vanity run — which teachers did not support — but they also weakened the NJEA’s political clout right when it was needed to push for much-needed pension improvements during Gov. Murphy’s last days in office — which teachers did support. That weakened political clout has now come back with a vengeance in the failure of the NJEA’s two major pension initiatives in the lame-duck session.

NJEA leadership pushed for action during the lame duck session. After the Spiller debacle, leadership turned its (belated) attention to an issue that really did matter to teachers: the half of the teacher workforce that started working after 2011 were stuck in inadequate Tier 5 pensions. This resulted in the “Tier 1 for Everyone” campaign, which aimed to move all these thousands of Tier 5 teachers as well as 30,000 education support personnel (ESPs: bus drivers, custodians, cafeteria staff, etc.) to Tier 1 pensions. Bills were introduced in both legislative chambers and the NJEA claimed to have a petition signed by 112,000 members, which it delivered to the statehouse in December with great fanfare. Given the NJEA’s very cozy relationship with Murphy, leadership made clear that it was “a crucial opportunity for members to organize to get these bills passed by the legislature and signed by Gov. Phil Murphy during the lame duck session …”

And whiffed twice. Despite the NJEA’s full-court press, the lame duck session came and went without passing the pension bills. Given the precarious state of New Jersey’s pension system, the state’s chronic budget deficits, and already-high tax burden, getting Tier 1 for everyone was always going to be a very heavy political lift. And, indeed, it was. When it was clear that the NJEA’s main legislative goal was thwarted, the NJEA reduced the ask to the 30,000 ESPs, but even this lesser goal was thwarted. So NJEA leadership came up with nothing for “Tier 1 for Everyone” during the lame-duck session. They indicate that they will re-introduce these bills in the new legislature but they will do so with reduced political clout and a (presumably) less co-opted governor than Murphy.

Once again, leadership hides the truth. You wouldn’t know these facts from NJEA leadership’s pronouncements. True to past form, leadership wants to hide the truth from teachers. On the NJEA’s website and Bluesky, leadership trumpeted the NJEA’s successes: “Lame duck legislative session ends with NJEA wins.” The reality is something quite different.

What if the $45 million had been spent on the pension campaign? Once again, this failure highlights how foolish, spendthrift, and out of touch the Spiller debacle was. NJEA leadership wasted $45 million of teachers’ dues on Spiller’s long-shot and ultimately failed candidacy, which teachers did not support. What if the $45 million and the NJEA’s full focus had been devoted to the pension campaign, which teachers did support? For almost a year, leadership turned the NJEA into a de facto “Spiller for Governor” Super PAC and the organization’s resources and organizing efforts were primarily devoted to Spiller’s run. What if those resources and efforts had been singularly devoted to improving pensions? Too bad for teachers: they will never know.

True to past form, rather than tell teachers the truth, leadership obfuscates and deceives. During the entire Spiller campaign, current leaders Beatty and Robertson helped hide the truth about spending $45 million of dues on Spiller from the very teachers who paid those dues, and now they want to hide the complete failure of the pension campaign. Teachers deserve better.