Garden State Patriot

Jon Corzine and the Democrats in Trenton like to lecture us about values and how their policies are always looking out for kids and the least fortunate among us. However, their actions always seem to belie their rhetoric.

Such is the case in the legislature where Democrats are now proposing two education bills that will tie the hands of school districts when it comes to managing costs of non-educational functions. 

With a quintessential example of everything wrong with Democrat, Soprano-state tactics, they are rushing through proposals that would line the pockets of their union cronies while wasting taxpayer money and taking away needed resources from kids in the classroom.

The New Jersey School Boards Association explains:

Assembly Panel OKs Union Bills that Would Drive Up Costs to Schools, Taxpayers

TRENTON, June 22, 2009 — With little advance notice, the Assembly Education Committee this morning released two union-backed bills that would increase costs to taxpayers and undermine efforts to improve the quality of education, the executive director of the New Jersey School Boards Association said today.

One bill would make it virtually impossible for schools to save money by contracting with outside businesses for operations, such as food services, maintenance and transportation. The other measure would drive up school district legal costs by making decisions not to renew the employment of non-tenured employees subject to arbitration.

Both bills could be acted on by the full Assembly as early as Thursday.

Subcontracting By restricting public school’ ability to hire private companies to provide non-instructional services, A-4140 (Oliver) would impede district efforts to direct limited resources into the classroom. The bill would force a school district to wait up to three years before it could use subcontracting as a way to address budgetary issues.

“Enactment of this legislation would close off a valuable financial tool that school districts use to control costs,” said Marie S. Bilik, NJSBA executive director. “It would make the subcontracting option no option at all. This legislation was a bad idea a decade ago, and it’s an even worse idea now that economic conditions are so bleak.”

NJSBA conducted a survey of school districts when similar legislature was proposed in 1999 and 2002. The 250 responding districts reported saving more than $40 million of tax dollars by using subcontractors to provide cafeteria services, maintenance or transportation. In addition, the vast majority (94%) of districts that hired subcontractors said they made accommodations for existing employees. Such provisions included requiring subcontractors to hire or to guarantee interviews with displaced employees, offering severance packages, or privatizing positions only as employees left.

Arbitration The other bill, A-4142 (Cryan), addresses disciplinary measures for non-tenured staff. It would place many decisions not to renew the contracts of non-tenured teachers into arbitration, driving up legal costs and making it even more difficult for school districts to remove under-performing staff.

A-4142 would give an employee the ability to use arbitration to contest a non-renewal decision that was based on his or her job performance by claiming that the decision was made for disciplinary reasons. As a result, school district legal fees could increase substantially at a time when the state is penalizing school districts for non-classroom expenditures, according to NJSBA.

In addition, under the bill, determinations over disciplinary actions, such as withholding a teacher’s increment, would be made by labor arbitrators, who have no educational expertise. Moreover, even if the increment withholding were allowed, the amount of the increment would still count toward the teacher’s pension—an unusual provision, considering current concerns over the financial health of the state’s public employee pension system.

“The bill would make it far more costly and difficult to remove under-performing teachers before they are granted lifetime tenure,” explained Bilik. “A-4142 would throw additional obstacles in the way of school districts that attempt to employ the most effective teachers for their classrooms.”

Short Notice This morning’s Assembly Education Committee meeting was first announced on Friday, June 19 at 6:46 p.m. Drafts of the legislation were not publicly available until the meeting, which began at 9 a.m. today. Although representatives of some education organizations, including NJSBA, received drafts yesterday, there was insufficient time for analysis.

“Today’s committee meeting is a clear example of why the public needs to watch the Legislature, and watch it closely, during an election year,” Bilik commented. “In seeking not to alienate the teachers union, the majority of committee members today approved two bills that are not in the interest of education or taxpayers—especially in these harsh economic times.”

While it would easy for me to pin this completely on the Democrats, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that each of these bills passed through the education committee with unanimous support. Yes, that means several ‘Republicans’ also supported this, voting right along with Democrat hack Joseph ‘I’m Always’ Cryan.  These sell-outs include: Amy Handlin, Joseph Malone, David Wolfe — and none other than Scott Rumana. RINOs one and all!

(h/t JacksonNJ Online)

Cross-posted at Red County and Conservatives with Attitude!