FEBRUARY 10, 2016, 6:49 PM LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2016, 6:57 PM
BY STEVE JANOSKI
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
RIDGEWOOD — The Board of Education and the Ridgewood Education Association remain locked in their inability to come to terms on a new teachers’ contract, despite the efforts of a state-appointed fact finder.
Members of the REA, cloaked in red to show solidarity, crowded into a school board meeting Monday night for the second time this month to decry the lack of progress in negotiations. Although there are numerous points of contention, the sharpest disagreement has come over how much REA members must contribute to their health-insurance premiums.
REA President Michael Yannone, a 19-year veteran of Ridgewood High School, said Monday the board’s position in a Feb. 3 fact-finding meeting was reduced to two points: The district had no additional money to spend on teacher salaries, and no other New Jersey school district had agreed to a reduction in healthcare contributions, because that would be “unaffordable.”
Yannone said neither was true. A number of districts had negotiated reductions in healthcare contributions, he said, and an influx of state aid and health contribution money — combined with under-budgeting in certain areas — had led to a sizable surplus in the local school budget.
Teachers, welcome to the real world as a village resident and taxpayer i also have to pay a significant amount of my paycheck for health care. Maybe teachers should choose a lessor plan or higher deductible .
The NJEA sold out their membership when negotiating with the Christie administration over teacher’s participation. This has been coming for 4 years…can’t say they didn’t see it coming. Mr. Yannone, please tell all the casualties of the bleak economic ‘recovery’ – the unemployed and under-employed – how you don’t like to pay anything for your healthcare again.
The teachers are being unpatriotic by trying to stuff Ridgewood taxpayers yet again. Their demands are unreasonable and in bad faith. Yannone needs to be retired
Hey Mike, take a hike
If they want the Platinum plan, they can pay the extra premium themselves. The REA is making terroristic threats against the BoE and Village taxpayers, with verbal attacks on our board members. Disgusting behavior by Mike Yannone and the teachers
There appears to be some misinformation fueling these derogatory comments. Teachers do pay for their health benefits and are not asking for a free ride. Instead, they are requesting a reduction in the policy premium percentage they are being required to pay.
Economic Policy Institute, Rutgers University School of Management and Labor Relations professor Jeffrey Keefe addressed the “myth of the overcompensated public employee” and concluded that public employees were actually “slightly undercompensated” compared to their private-sector counterparts. Further, Keefe says that “education level is the single most important earnings predictor”–and yet in 2010, U.S. public employees with Master’s degrees earned an average of $33,655 less in salary than private-sector workers with the same level of education–and $36,621 less in total compensation when benefits were factored in. This discrepancy Keefe observed in public- vs. private-sector compensation existed before Chris Christie took office in New Jersey in 2010.
In 2011 Christie signed Chapter 78, P.L. 2011, a law that forced public employees to make increased contributions to their pensions and health benefits. Today, a New Jersey teacher making the average salary of $67,000 is paying 29 percent of the premium cost for an individual policy — almost two times the 16 percent national average for similarly educated private employees with individual coverage.
As for the funding for these reductions, the REA is asking the Board of Education to utilize the $3.6 million “surplus”
that was recently discovered during fact finding. This money was still in the coffers after the board purchased all of the new curriculum they believed necessary, bolstered the technology of he district and hired new administrators.
5:45, your post is pure REA rhetoric. Requesting a reduction in the policy premium percentage teachers are being required to pay is unfair to tax paying residents who must pay their own health plan premiums as well as your plan premiums. You don’t like the cost, get a cheaper plan on an ACA exchange which your union supported. Stop holding Village residents hostage over your health plan contribution amount, and please cease with the personal threats against our BoE members.
What a joke, public employees are “slightly undercompensated” compared to their private-sector counterparts? 5:45, that’s the trade-off, public sector employers get lower comp today in exchange for subsidized health benefits and pensions. But that trade-off is broken. “slightly undercompensated” for less than 10 months a year of work, plus subsidized health benefits and pensions from age 62? This is a deal we don’t get in the private sector so why are you asking us to pay more of your health plan premium? Just stop.
10:04 can you explain your comment “Stop holding Village residents hostage over your health plan contribution amount, and please cease with the personal threats against our BoE members.”
It is my understanding that the teachers are working to contractual hours and responsibly completing all duties for which they are compensated.
10:10 You have your opinion as to what the teachers should be paid for their profession and obviously it is a strong conviction that won’t change. Salaries that decrease as a result of exorbitant premium contributions need to be subsidized. What will change is teacher availability for beyond contracted/compensated hours as it will be necessary to get second jobs to make ends meet. That is the reality of the situation. How do you propose to fund those additional services that are now provided gratis???
@ 5:45 – Unless you are very lucky and have a very generous employer, the percentage of premiums you’ll pay is higher than 29%. The current business I run subsidizes employee health insurance by 50%. That means the employees pay the other 50%. My wife has a full time job with another (huge) company and her health insurance costs more – which means that her employer is probably subsidizing even less than 50%, so I know I am not being a scrooge.
We are all in favor of fairly compensating Teachers. What you are asking for is not fair. I agree that Teachers should be on Obamacare (which raised everyone’s rates and reduced coverage by increasing deductables and co-pays). You helped force it down our throats, you should have to eat it too.
7:56, why not hire younger teachers who want to work for the Ridgewood BOE if you don’t like the deal?
Well at last 7:56 recognizes the “exorbitant premium contributions” that private sector employees all pay. Why do we need to subsidize so much of your premiums, too? Downgrade your plan like the rest of us if you are dissatisfied with the premiums for the platinum plans the teachers have been getting
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Salaries that decrease as a result of exorbitant premium contributions need to be subsidized.
Join the club. when cost rise families have to cut back..join the real world..
1:27 What younger teacher, with a need to make a living, would choose to join a district where their take home pay decreases every year and residents believe Obamacare should be their health coverage?
1245 I know lots of competent young teachers that would gladly work for a lot lower pay and cheerfully pay for their health benefits in Order to get a job here instead of the other districts they work in, as a requirement to satisfy their student loan obligations many work in poor districts for 5 years.
8:25 You missed the point. Teachers are part of the club,” when cost rise families have to cut back.”
Teachers in Ridgewood provide services that are above and beyond their contracted responsibilities. They arrive earlier than required to run extra math and reading sessions, give up lunch to work with students in need, attend overnight field trips, chaperone class trips that extend beyond the scheduled school day just to mention a few of their many before/after hour “gratis” hours. As paychecks shrink, teachers need to take second jobs to cover their cost of living since taxes, mortgage, food, utilities increase. Their available hours will drastically change and they will no longer be able to arrive early/stay later. Lunch time will be needed to complete those administrative tasks that typically would be done when they are now working the second job. How do you propose to fund/fill the extra “gratis” duties that are now taken for granted?
“join the real world..” This is reality…
11:20 As I understand it teachers’ contracts dictate the hours they work. Very few, if any, work gratis by coming in early to assist students or stay late. Years ago teachers would stay after hours to help a student who needed a little additional help to grasp a concept. I do not believe that is the case today. Again, if you feel you would need to take a second job to make ends meet to support your life style that is your decision. In the private sector with so many layoffs many well educated people are now underemployed and must take second jobs to survive and get no health benefits. If tenure were eliminated and teachers faced the same rigorous reviews private sector employees endure I think you would see big changes for the better in our schools. Too many have lost the “magic” and interest in their professions. The quality of education suffers.
I agree with 8:39 regarding 11:20. If they do anything extra they want a stipend to do so……