I knew that having 608 school superintendents for the state of NJ was waste of money in duplicative salaries, expenses and benefits, but I never realized how bad it was until I read an article complaining about all the perks enjoyed by the superintendents. A related article in today's press noted that the average salary for superintendents is $147,491. $147,491 x 608 = 89,674,528. Almost $90M, and that's before the perks! If we merge the districts to say 30 (21 counties, plus some big urban systems like Newark with a school population almost the size of a county's), the salaries would be 4,424,730. That's an $85M a year difference in salary alone! Add in the saved benefit costs by not having an extra 575 superintendents on the payroll, plus much of their duplicative, related staffs that could be consolidated and we're talking real money!
I understand that persons at a certain professional level earn certain perks that go with the job. And, if we had one superintendent for the entire state, I would expect that person to be paid accordingly, such as NYC's school Chancellor, Joe Klein, responsible for 1.1M students. But 608 Joe Kleins for fewer students (around 900,000)? Don't be ridiculous! I'm all for investing in education and paying people what they are worth, but I don't feel the great need to pay for a Lexus every year with all the works when a Camry that will last 7 or 8 years will do the same job just as well. Reduce the unnecessary overhead and return the money to the taxpayers or to the schools.
Ok, maybe comparing all 600 plus superintendents to the school chancellor is unfair, since NYC's schools are further broken down by districts. Still, the entire city, with a school population of about 200,000 students more than the entire state of NJ has only 42 community and high school superintendents. So going by that, maybe 30 is too low. Heck, considering the reputation of NYC's schools, which has been improving, maybe even 42 is a too low of a number. However, I'm pretty sure the entire state of NJ can find an appropriate number between 42 and 608.
North Carolina, for example, which has a population slightly larger than NJ, has just one superintendent (a rose by any other name...) and 115 school administrative units. Virginia, with a slightly smaller population than NJ, has 130 school districts, some of which are held in very high esteem. I'd say an appropriate number for NJ is somewhere around there. So, assuming 130 school districts is the magic number (who really thinks NJ would pick a lower number?), 130 superintendents times $150,000 (I'll give them a slight raise) is still only about $20M ($19,500,500 to be exact). Now $20M is sure a lot less than $90M (and I'm not even including benefits). Imagine what the state could do with that $70M (does anyone think it will be given back to us as tax cuts? -- ha ha). Oh wait -- this is NJ, a land run from a wretched hive of scum and villainy... oops, that's the Mos Eisley spaceport in Star Wars, not Trenton, but you get my point.
Unfortunately, this waste in money on school superintendents is only a symbol of a bigger problem in NJ; our addiction to a lot of government. I'm not a conservative who believes in virtually no government, calling for the abolition of agencies and services that come in handy, like courts, police departments etc. I realize that some government is necessary for the good of a society as a whole. But I think we've taken that to the extreme here in NJ. We can point to our thousands of different government offices at the local, county and state level (including various agencies) and see many wastes of money. Not just in bloated payrolls and duplicative services, but a decrease in efficiencies due to smaller governments not getting as good a deal with vendors as larger entities, different governments repeating various tasks that could be accomplished by fewer people, to lack of talent as the cream that rises to top is diminished. Of course we have some wonderfully run local governments, but, unfortunately, they seem to be overshadowed by the bad.
Think of it like baseball in the expansion age, when there are 30 teams vs baseball in 1950s, when there were only 16 teams -- the talent per roster today, even with the acceptance of minority players that were delegated to the Negro leagues, or just not drafted in the past, very rarely can compare with the talent of a roster from the 1950s. Only a few can and should make the majors.Yes I'm looking at you Washington Nationals (before this season I would've said Tampa Bay Devil Rays).
While I don't see consolidation in pro sports coming any time soon, at least while the clubs make money, state government is non-profit and in place to provide basic services. There is nothing stopping us from reducing government (aside from all the corruption involved of course). Find the good local government leaders and keep them in majors. As for the rest, it is time to consolidate and send most of these government entities back to the minors.
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