Decades ago, one of my cousins took one of those what career should I go into testsbefore going to college. The aptitude test suggested she become a teacher. Her mother, a by then two decade veteran of the NYC school school system said, in so many words "no" (as I recall she was quite emotional about it) for various reasons such as available career opportunities, but she was most adamant about the pay and suggested my cousin find an alternate, more lucrative career. Today my cousin is a stay at home mom with her own accounting business and is doing quite nicely. However, it appears that if my cousin had only become a NJ school superintendent. Whatever the outcome of the Keansburg debacle turns out to be, we should thank the Keansburg Board of Education for giving us a lesson in NJ corruption 101.
This is the type of corruption that is killing this state. No laws were probably broken and the contract allowing the 36 veteran to retire form a teaching/ supervising career with a severance package of over $500,000 ($740,000 when you add in her unused sick and vacation time) is probably legal. Even if various governments are successful into shaming her into giving up some of what she is contractually obligated to receive, she will still walk away with a nice chunk of change, the same change that could've paid for a teacher for many years in one of her Abbott Schools. Of course, what do you expect when there are over 600 little school fiefdoms?
We the people are the ones who drank the kool-aid and think homerule is best. What a bunch of you know what. Some argue that it is good because you interact with your local government and maybe even know your local representative, allowing you to speak to a friend in lieu of a stranger. Again, a bunch of you know what. This is just a waste of taxpayer money that allows some to live off the public dollar, though not be on welfare, because we refuse to consolidate.
I grew up in Queens. My dad was friends with the local councilman. That didn't make a difference. Later, while in college, I worked at a local deli where the councilman was a regular customer. The deli was near an intersection where two major roads merged into one without a traffic light. It was the scene of many backups as a 3 lane road merged into one. I used to hear the owner and many of the customers beg for a traffic light to alleviate the situation. Nothing happened until the councilman was ling out of office. I was friends with the son of his replacement and friends with the son of his secretary. So later, when my elderly mother, who was disabled at the time, was having troubles getting around due to lack of curb cuts or handicapped accessible buses, she went to to our councilman. She received no special treatment and, frankly, that is the way it should be -- everyone treated fairly (outside of corruption).
Representative government is nice but there is something to be said for less government. It made no difference whether you were a friend or a stranger to our local representative; you were treated the same (though, in fairness there were corruption rumors surrounding the later councilman that some were more equal than others, but at least his alleged corruption didn't require the high taxes we see here in NJ). One mayor for 8M people, one school chief for 1M students and less than 50 council members, plus various aides and commissioners to run the entire city. So much better than the hodgepodge we have here in NJ, where each town has their own government(s) and entities that keep repeating each other's work. And when there was corruption, it was moreefficient thanks to the reduction of overhead -- just one bribe to a borough president accomplished what many payoffs to various low level politicians in NJ do. In the meantime, our local councilman did help take care of local problems, such as adding the occasionla traffic light or getting more police protection from time to time.
Anyone whose job it is to put the public's needs before an individual's should have been screaming over Keansberg school contract. Listening to the school board members defending their actions is pathetic -- well at least it would be if I heard them say something aside from asking the superintendent to sit down with them as if this caught them totally by surprise (most likely, the suprise was that the public found out). Now they have their moment of clarity? Where was it when they were drawing up the superintendent's contract (I can guess but then I might be sued for libel)? What is it with this state that seems to transform those who want to serve the public to those who want to create individual feifdoms to fatten their wallets? Those who argue that it's only fair that school administrators get big pensions by pointing out that corporations give their chiefs big packages fail to distinguish the difference between serving the public and running a business for profit. It's not the employee taking $100,000 out of a town's safe that is making it expensive to live in NJ, it is all the friends of friends who are legally taking the money out of taxpayer pockets through all too friendly contracts. And lawmakers only seem to care when it makes news.
My company is currently undergoing a restructuring. As a result of this restructuring some employees will be laid off. Their severance will be 2 weeks pay capped at 15 years of service (meaning 30 weeks of pay for the more veteran employees), plus whatever vacation time they've so far earned this year. While most of the laid off employees will take packages of $20-40k, I think there is one senior director who is taking advantage of this to retire so he might walk away with $75-100k. Why is he getting so much less then the Keansberg superintendent? Oh of course! He was foolish enough not to go into government service in NJ. Silly man.
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