NJ Department of Education Unit “Q” Double-Dippers collected roughly $5.9 million last year
March 2,2015
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Speaking of salaries, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports on an investigation from New Jersey Watchdog that found that an obscure unit of the NJ Department of Education called Unit “Q” employs 40 “double-dipping” staff members, who collect pensions as well as paychecks. For example, Cathy Coyle, who collects an annual pension of $73,765 from the State, also takes home $151,862 for her DOE job as a “special services” employee in Unit Q.
From the Inquirer:
• Two-thirds of NJDOE’S top 60 Unit Q special services workers collect state pensions.
• Those 40 employees collected roughly $5.9 million last year – nearly $2.9 million in state pay plus almost $3 million from retirement checks.
• Thirty-eight of the double-dippers have six-figure incomes. Five receive more than $200,000 a year.
Most of them seem to work as either County Superintendents (irony alert: they control merit bonuses for district superintendents; see post below this) or Regional Achievement Center Executive Directors, who oversee NJ’s most troubled districts.
Data collected by https://watchdog.org/category/new-jersey/ and the https://www.philly.com/inquirer/
But its alright it for the kids.
Is it any wonder NJ is dying on the vine?
I am sure some of these double dippers are RAC employees who go around to the schools they have determined are “Focus” schools for some obscure reason and then tell them what they need to do in order to no longer be a Focus school. The problem is that it is near impossible to ever get off this list once you are on it this insuring these double dippers their jobs.