On Tuesday, December 18, 2007, the Bridgewater-Raritan Board of Education approved a multi-million dollar wage hike which translated into a 12.8% salary increase spread out over three years. Beginning this summer, the last part of that increase – 4.35% – is scheduled to be paid to district employees for the 2010-2011 school year.
The B-R BOE needs to reopen all of its contracts with representatives of school employee bargaining units. Everybody knows that times have changed drastically. The old normal no longer exists. Bargaining units need to agree with the Board of Education that the third-year pay hike is no longer viable. (It wasn’t when originally negotiated in 2007.) It should be rescinded, and contributions to health benefits need to be put on the table.
We finally have a governor who has recognized what all New Jersey citizens have known for years: we have overspent and mortgaged the futures of our children. Consequently, Governor Christie has declared a state of fiscal emergency to plug a $2.2 billion hole in the state budget.
Unfortunately for all of us in the communities of Bridgewater and Raritan, he has also decided to withhold $4.02 million in state funding originally allocated to this district under the Corzine administration. Nobody likes this. I do not. Nonetheless, I’ve seen these problems rising on the horizon for years. To illustrate: The pension fund for school employees is severely underfunded, threatening its ability to pay out future benefits. We’ve been warned about this problem for a long time.
A salary freeze in the Bridgewater-Raritan School District should be established from the top on down – beginning with the Superindent of Schools, then all administrators, followed by teachers, building and grounds personnel, and everyone else. Inflation has been running well below that wage hike of nearly 13%. It has even dipped into negative territory. Bridgewater and Raritan just can’t afford this level of wage increases anymore.
If the sacrifice is not evenly distributed, expect that this Board of Education and its Administration may be forced to enact cuts that could highlight weaker bargaining units or members of the Bridgewater-Raritan employee population for elimination. And that’s not equitable.
Tomorrow night, at 8:00 pm in the Wade Building in Martinsville, there will be a presentation of the second draft of the budget.
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