Ferraina: “I got $600,000? That’s not much,” he said. “There, you want a headline? ‘That’s not much.’
Casagrande: “Those are dollars that would be better served in the classroom”
Retired Long Branch School Superintendent Joseph Ferraina collected $616,123 in unused sick and vacation pay, not all at once in a lump sum at retirement, but over the course of course of his last ten years on the job, according to a report published at LongBranchPatch.
Go read the article. It is an outstanding piece of journalism by reporter Joe Malinconico who discovered the payments via an Open Public Records Act request and conducted a 57 minute phone interview with Ferraina.
According to LongBranchPatch, the records and Ferraina indicate that the educator only took off time from work if a close family member died; a half day for his father in 2004, a four hours when his brother died in 2005 and a partial day when his son died in 2008. On the day of his son’s funeral he went to work first thing in the mornin, left at 8:45 am, fifteen minutes before the services started, and was back at his desk by 2 pm.
Ferriana’s salary was $244,999 when he retired in June. His annual pension is $154,710.
Assemblywoman Caroline Casagrande said Ferraina’s $600K was essentially taken from school children by legislative leaders who have refused to outlaw the practice of paying public employees for unused sick and vacation time.
“This is another example of a system that allows dollars to come out of the classroom and into the pockets of administrators,” Casagrande said. “We had a bipartisan compromise bill that addressed part of the problem and Governor Christie recommended a way to fix the problem, which I support.
“Legislators who agreed this practice is wrong should work with me to enact Governor Christie’s changes so we can end the payout of unused time before there is another example of wasted tax dollars,” Casagrande added.
Casagrande, R-Monmouth, sponsors a bill, A-4193, that incorporates the Governor’s recommendations to ban public employees from cashing in unused sick and vacation days. It incorporates recommendations made by Governor Christie to strengthen a legislative proposal that was approved by the Legislature last year. But Trenton Democratic legislative leaders have refused to advance an outright ban, just a cap on the amount public employees can cash in.
“Those are dollars that would be better served in the classroom,” Casagrande said. “As long as this practice is legal, public employees will continue to use it and every day legislative leaders delay, is another day accrued for public employees, which adds up to many dollars taken from taxpayers and school children.
“These golden parachutes are especially egregious in these trying economic times,” Casagrande added.
The Bergenfield school system has a long tradition of excellence and out of the box thinking. It is appropriate that one of their schools was chosen for the pilot program.
Senator Loretta Weinberg, whose district includes Bergenfield, and Senate President Stephen Sweeney used the occasion to issue a snarky partisan statement that has nothing to do with the merits of the teacher evaluation system.
Snark is par for the course with Weinberg, but I didn’t expect her to make such a blatant gaff about Bergenfield’s history and the history of a New Jersey Hall of Fame member, Jersey Boy Frankie Valli.
Weinberg and Sweeney opened their statement as follows:
“It is great to see the governor visiting the wonderful schools in Bergenfield, home to the outstanding music program where Frankie Valli got started.
Bergenfield does have an outstanding music program. It has for decades. But that is not where Frankie Valli got started. Valli grew up in Newark.
Bob Gaudio, Valli’s partner in The Four Seasons and the writer of most of the group’s hit songs, got his start in Bergenfield. Gaudio had his first hit record, Short Shorts, at the age of 15 while still a student at Bergenfield High School.
Guadio and Valli met in 1958 while they were both touring with different groups. Two years later they formed The Four Seasons.
Weinberg should know this. Not because it is Bergenfield trivia, but because she attended Gaudio’s honorary graduation from Bergenfield High School only two years ago in 2009.
That Gaudio didn’t graduate with his class is an example of the long history of out of the box thinking for Bergenfield educators. Paul Hoffmeister, then-principal of Bergenfield High School, helped Gaudio convince his parents to let him drop out of school to pursue his musical career, according to the Jersey Boys Blog:
But, in 1958 he was only a 15-year-old kid who had tasted the success of “Short Shorts” and knew in his gut that music would be his life.
Concerned parents
Now he only had to convince his parents that it would be a good idea for him to leave school so that he and the Royal Teens could go on tour with the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry.
Though it was an easy decision for Gaudio, he knew it would be a hard sell to his parents.
But an ally came to his aid from a very surprising corner during a meeting with Bob, his parents and Paul Hoffmeister, then-principal of Bergenfield High School.
“My parents were very concerned,” said Gaudio, “and this meeting was my last resort to try and convince my dad, in particular, to let me go.”
“But I didn’t expect what happened,” he said. “I thought the principal would side with my parents, but he didn’t; and he shaped my future.”
“It was very astute of him,” said Gaudio, “and I think he was very tuned in to what kids were thinking and how they’re feeling at that stage in their lives.”
“I don’t know if he gave that type of advice to other people,” he said, “but it just made sense to him and was definitely the right decision for me, though I’m sure a major part of it was that I already had a hit record — I wasn’t just going to quit school and twiddle my thumbs and throw darts.”
Not only was Gaudio’s life shaped by Hoffmeister’s risk. American culture was shaped by it.
Weinberg and Sweeney should get their facts straight if they’re going to be snarky.
The $150 million in increased suburban education funding in Governor Christie’s budget came too late to impact most school budgets for the 2011-2012 school year, according to an article at NJSpotlight.
When the Christie administration announced the final state education funding figures last week they encouraged districts to use the money for property tax relief. A follow up memo later in the week included a deadline of tomorrow if the districts wanted to include the extra money in the coming year’s tax levy. To do so, school boards would have had to publish notices of special meetings on Thursday or Friday of last week and hold those meetings today or tomorrow.
Most school districts will carry the money in surplus accounts in the coming year.
MMM does not refer to state money for suburban education as “aid” as that implies the money is not ours to begin with. “Funding” is a more accurate term.
B4K Calls for Bipartisan Common Sense Changes to New Jersey’s Public School System
New Brunswick (June 22, 2011) – Better Education for Kids (B4K), a 501(c)(4) organization, launched a new statewide radio ad this morning.
The ad, which begins the second campaign launched by the organization this month, calls for bipartisan common sense changes to New Jersey’s public education system.
“We need a new way forward in New Jersey. It’s time to end politics as usual and give parents, students and concerned citizens a real voice in this debate. Every child deserves to receive a first-rate education and an opportunity to succeed in the 21st century. We need to act now and make New Jersey’s public school system a national model for student achievement. It’s time to end special interest domination of our public education system and put our children’s interests first,” said Derrell Bradford, Executive Director of Better Education for Kids.
B4K believes student achievement should be the first priority of the New Jersey school system. Every student should have the opportunity to learn from a great teacher and every school should have a great principal. We need to elevate the teaching profession so that great teachers and principals are rewarded with merit pay and tenure becomes a significant professional milestone!
The Assembly Education Committee pulled bill A3242, legislation already passed by the State Senate, that would allow school districts to administer surveys that pry into the private lives of students and their families without parental consent, from the hearing calendar today due to the overwhelming public outcry legislators have received since MMM brought the bill to light on Tuesday evening.
Good job MMM readers!
Special thanks goes out to Carolee Adams, President of the Eagle Forum of New Jersey. Adams first brought this legislation to our attention. Her lobbying efforts contributed to the passage of the current law that requires parental consent for intrusive student surveys that was passed during the lame duck session of 2001-2002.
MMM and Adams will continue to monitor the bill and alert you should the Assembly Education Committee reschedule a hearing.
MMM has just heard that 11th district Assemblywoman Mary Pat Angelini is withdrawing her sponsorship of Assembly bill A3242, a law that would allow school districts to survey students about their families’ political affiliations; sexual behaviors and attitudes; mental illnesses and psychological problems; illegal, anti-social, self-incriminating, and demeaning behavior; critical appraisals of other individuals with whom a respondent has a close family relationship; legally recognized privileged or analogous relationships such has those of lawyers, physicians or ministers; income and social security number; all without parental consent.
The Assembly Education Committee has a hearing scheduled on the bill this afternoon.
Those who don’t mind the government, school districts, nonprofits and federal grantees asking their children intimate personal information about themselves and their families don’t need to do anything.
Those who object should call members of the Assembly Education Committee:
Scott Rumana – 973 237 1362
Joseph Mallone – 609 298 6250
Paul Moriarty – 856 232 6700
Ruben Ramos – 201 714 4960
Pat Diegnan – 908 757 1677
Bonnie Watson – 609 292 0500
David Wolfe – 732 840 9028
Ralph Caputo – 973 450 0484
Elease Evans – 973 247 1521
Mila Jasey – 973 762 1886
Brian Rumpf – 609 693 6700
The rationale for this bill is that federal grantees and nonprofits have been frustrated in their attempts to get the personal information. In Massachusetts middle school students, 7th and 8th graders, were recently asked how many sexual partners they have had, about condom use and their oral sexual behavior. The survey was conducted by a local social services agency in cooperation with the federal Center for Disease Control, according to FoxNews.
The school principle acknowledged that the graphic survey took place but said the school had nothing to do with the content and that they were required to administer the survey to comply with a federal grant.
Strong New Jersey Chairwoman Diane Gooch issued a statement this morning condemning A3242:
“Liberals in the state legislature are attempting to hijack the private information of New Jersey’s students with this recent effort to collect personal data through the school districts. It is an affront to our sensibilities and our constitutional rights. Big brother lives somewhere, but it shouldn’t be Trenton.”
Since the “chopper gate” story hit the fan last week, The Record’s Charles Stile has been gleefully making the case that the media and partisan noise about Governor Christie’s use of the State Police helicopter has been so ferocious because of “smash mouth” style. Stile, and other NJ media elites, have cited two recent polls, both taken before the chopper hullabaloo, that showed Christie’s approval ratings slipping as evidence that his style is wearing thin on New Jersey voters.
Stile has noted correctly that the chopper noise has been so harsh, despite the facts that Christie’s use of helicopter has been far more frugal than that of his predecessors and that his use of the chopper didn’t cost taxpayers anymore money than if he had traveled by SUV, because of Christie’s “in your face” plain spoken style. Christie’s political opponents and their media lapdogs have been laying in wait for an opportunity bash him back.
Stile has joined The Star Ledger’s Tom Moran in arguing that Christie should be nicer and more polite while turning Trenton upside down. Stile and Moran would have Christie’s compromising more and reforming less.
The irony here, from my point of view, is that over the last few months Christie has been nicer and more compromising. He’s toned it down. His opponents have subsequently stepped it up.
Maybe Christie’s poll numbers have slipped because he’s toned it down. Last spring he was railing against the NJEA and urging voters to defeat school budgets where unions wouldn’t compromise. Voters responded by defeating budgets in record numbers. Christie’s polls were strong. This spring Christie was silent on the school budgets.
Is there no more waste in our public schools? Has the the problem of excessive compensation, pensions and benefits been solved?
Since the GOP lost the legislative redistricting battle, Christie and Senate President Steve Sweeney announced a compromise over Supreme Court nominee Anne Patterson’s nomination that had been held up for a year. Part of the compromise included a promise by Sweeney that a hearing to fill the Court seat of former Justice John Wallace, which has been vacant for a year because Sweeney didn’t like that Christie did not reappoint Wallace, would take place next March. By making that agreement Christie acknowledged that Sweeney would still be Senate President in March, meaning Republicans are not going to win control of the State Senate in the coming election.
That the Democrats will retain control of the Legislature after the November election is probably realistic calculus on Christie’s part. He probably made a strategic decision that he can get more of his agenda accomplished by compromising than by fighting. That might be the best decision, but it also means that New Jersey will only have incremental improvement to our dysfunctional governments, rather than real reform…turning Trenton upside down reform…for the rest of Christie’s term.
I’d rather have the confrontational governor we elected. Even if it means stalemates and the shutting down of government, I’d rather Christie ridicule and embarrass the Trenton cesspool than compromise with it. Christie has only been in office less than 18 months. The cesspool has spent decades putting us into the mess we’re in.
As a matter of style, the chopper hullabaloo demonstrates that the media/establishment cesspool is not going to respond to a kinder, gentler Christie in kind. As a matter of substance, today’s news that the Democrats are going to attempt to increase education spending more than the Supreme Court has ordered and increase income taxes, demonstrates that the cesspool will always try to maintain and protect the status quo that makes them fat at the taxpayers’ expense.
Christie came into office promising to govern as if he only had one term to get the job done and without consideration for whether or not he’d be re-elected. Since then he has admittedly fallen in love with the job and become enamoured with national attention and presidential wooing his in your face style has brought to him.
Christie’s “in your face” style works. His adjustments should be by adding humor and charm to his ridicule, like Reagan did, not by compromising and being more polite.
If Christie has concluded that he has accomplished all he can in New Jersey with confrontation, he should get ready quickly and run for President. New Jersey and the United States both face horrendously serious problems. Compromise and tinkering around the edges of a broken system will not do.
We need Chris Chirstie’s unabashed leadership in New Jersey and in America. As Christie advised the new Republican leadership in Washington, we need to put up or shut up.
