>Christie administration quietly signs controversial ratepayer-subsidy bill
Bury the controversial news late on a Friday.
That is the conventional wisdom, and it apparently held true this past weekend when the Christie administration quietly signed a bill that would give power plant developers a lucrative ratepayer subsidy to build up to 2,000 new megawatts of generating capacity in New Jersey. (Johnson, NJ Spotlight)
https://www.njspotlight.com/stories/11/0130/2024/
>Appeals court order Christie administration to get cracking on COAH rules
A state appeals court has ordered Gov. Chris Christie’s administration to immediately comply with its October directive to adopt revised affordable housing rules by March. (Symons, Daily Record)
>Center to fight for ‘Abbott’ restoration
The Christie administration violated the New Jersey Constitution and a court order when it cut more than $1 billion in state aid to public schools in the spring, education advocates will argue before the New Jersey Supreme Court this week. (Giordano, The Philadelphia Inquirer)
https://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/20110103_Center_to_fight_for__Abbott__restoration.html#ixzz19y3QtBaU
>Christie signs law on arbitration
Gov. Christie signed a bill Tuesday that caps increases to police and firefighter pay awarded through arbitration, a measure he called the most important of the proposals in his so-called tool kit to help towns control costs. (Porter, The Philadelphia Inquirer)
https://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/nj/20101222_Christie_signs_law_on_arbitration.html#ixzz18pvE4O00
>Gov. Chris Christie details arbitration agreement
Gov. Chris Christie stood with the legislative leadership today and an announced a deal on arbitration reform. (Carroll, PolitickerNJ)
https://www.politickernj.com/43390/gov-details-arbitration-agreement
>Gingrich: Leaks show Obama administration ‘shallow,’ ‘amateurish’
By Shane D’Aprile – 12/05/10 10:59 AM ET
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Sunday that President Obama and the White House deserve a large share of the blame for the massive amounts of classified information revealed through WikiLeaks.
Gingrich said the leaks are “a scandal of the first order” and that they demonstrate the Obama administration is “shallow” and “amateurish” when it comes to national security.
“You have a private first class who downloads a quarter million documents, and the system doesn’t say, ‘Oh, you may be over extended?’ I mean, this is a system so stupid that it ought to be a scandal of the first order,” Gingrich said. “This administration is so shallow and so amateurish about national security that it is painful and dangerous.”
>Christie administration advances school-aid arguments
With the latest Abbott v. Burke court proceedings still in limbo, the Christie administration further laid out its upcoming legal argument by saying that additional federal and even philanthropic money to the state-run Newark school district should be counted in helping offset its state-aid cuts. (Mooney, NJ Spotlight)
https://www.njspotlight.com/stories/10/1122/2305/
>Migration from high-tax states to states with lower taxes and less government spending will dramatically alter the composition of future Congresses
Low-tax states will gain seats, high-tax states will lose them
By: Barbara Hollingsworth
Local Opinion Editor
11/17/10 10:00 AM EST
Migration from high-tax states to states with lower taxes and less government spending will dramatically alter the composition of future Congresses, according to a study by Americans for Tax Reform
Eight states are projected to gain at least one congressional seat under reapportionment following the 2010 Census: Texas (four seats), Florida (two seats), Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina, Utah and Washington (one seat each). Their average top state personal income tax rate: 2.8 percent.
By contrast, New York and Ohio are likely to lose two seats each, while Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania will be down one apiece. The average top state personal income tax rate in these loser states: 6.05 percent.
The state and local tax burden is nearly a third lower in states with growing populations, ATR found. As a result, per capita government spending is also lower: $4,008 for states gaining congressional seats, $5,117 for states losing them.
And, as ATR notes, “in eight of ten losers, workers can be forced to join a union as a condition of employment. In 7 of the 8 gainers, workers are given a choice whether to join or contribute financially to a union
Read more at the Washington Examiner: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/low-tax-states-will-gain-seats-high-tax-states-will-lose-them-108681159.html#ixzz15aTdzCXY
>The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees is now the biggest outside spender of the 2010 elections
Campaign’s big spender
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees is now the biggest outside spender of the 2010 elections, thanks to an 11th-hour effort to boost Democrats that has vaulted the public-sector union ahead of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the AFL-CIO and a flock of new Republican groups in campaign spending. (Mullins and McKinnons, The Wall Street Journal)
https://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303339504575566481761790288.html
>Generation Text: Facebook and Texting Are Your Kids Safe?
FACEBOOK AND TEXTING: PRESENTATION TO BE HELD AT BFMS AUDITORIUM ON MONDAY, NOVEMBER 1
Generation Text: Facebook and Texting
Are Your Kids Safe?
Free Presentation by Detective Sergeant Tom Rich and Jill Brown, Founder of ItsMyLocker.com
Monday, November 1
7-9 p.m.
Benjamin Franklin Middle School Auditorium
335 North Van Dien Avenue
No registration necessary.
>
N.J. ranks 5th in nation for most out-of-state migration, data shows
Friday, September 17, 2010, 7:53 AM Updated: Monday, September 20, 2010, 1:27 PM
Leslie Kwoh/The Star-Ledger
https://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/09/nj_ranks_5th_in_nation_for_mos.html
More people moved out of New Jersey than all but four other states between 2000 to 2008, underscoring broader demographic shifts and, some say, a decline in the state’s attractiveness.
Even with a constant influx of newcomers, the Garden State had a net loss of nearly 304,000 residents over the eight-year-period, who took combined annual incomes of $12.3 billion with them to other states, according to figures accessed through a database launched today by the Tax Foundation, a policy research group in Washington, D.C. that advocates for lower taxes.
The data confirms residents are leaving for states like Florida, New York, Pennsylvania and the Carolinas faster than they are being replaced — a phenomenon that economists attribute to factors such as climate, high taxes and a lack of job opportunities.
“People are being pulled out, and they’re being pushed out,” said Joseph Seneca, a Rutgers University economics professor who studies migration. “They’re pulled because of retirement and climate reasons. They’re pushed by taxes and costs and — through this decade — a relative lack of economic opportunities in terms of job growth.”
View full sizeNew Jersey trails only New York, California, Illinois and Michigan for outmigration, according to the database, which tracks domestic movement by tax returns filed with the Internal Revenue Service. The number of residents moving were calculated based on tax exemptions, and incomes were adjusted for inflation
Full story:
https://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/09/nj_ranks_5th_in_nation_for_mos.html
>Christie administration may not apply for $268M U.S. education aid
The Christie administration may not apply for $268 million in federal education aid up for a vote in Washington Tuesday, the governor’s spokesman said. (Fleisher, Star Ledger)
https://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/08/christie_administration_may_no.html
>Healthcare Rationing something to look fiorward to in the USA
Axe falls on NHS services
NHS bosses have drawn up secret plans for sweeping cuts to services, with restrictions on the most basic treatments for the sick and injured.
Some of the most common operations — including hip replacements and cataract surgery — will be rationed as part of attempts to save billions of pounds, despite government promises that front-line services would be protected.
Patients’ groups have described the measures as “astonishingly brutal”.
An investigation by The Sunday Telegraph has uncovered widespread cuts planned across the NHS, many of which have already been agreed by senior health service officials. They include:
* Restrictions on some of the most basic and common operations, including hip and knee replacements, cataract surgery and orthodontic procedures.
* Plans to cut hundreds of thousands of pounds from budgets for the terminally ill, with dying cancer patients to be told to manage their own symptoms if their condition worsens at evenings or weekends.
* The closure of nursing homes for the elderly.
* A reduction in acute hospital beds, including those for the mentally ill, with targets to discourage GPs from sending patients to hospitals and reduce the number of people using accident and emergency departments.
* Tighter rationing of NHS funding for IVF treatment, and for surgery for obesity.
* Thousands of job losses at NHS hospitals, including 500 staff to go at a trust where cancer patients recently suffered delays in diagnosis and treatment because of staff shortages.
see full story : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/7908742/Axe-falls-on-NHS-services.html
>Christie Takes Aim at School Administration Salaries : this kind of micro-management is PRECISELY what gave us the unfunded retirement issues
I would think that this blog, and the group of people that read it would react negatively to the government dictating what we can and can’t as a community decide to pay our superintendent.
I would like to continue to have the choice — whether it be more or less — about what we pay.
AND this kind of micro-management is PRECISELY what gave us the unfunded retirement issues we have today. By keeping published salaries artifically low, fringe benefits are jacked up artifically high. Creating the budget busting that we see today as the costs of the fringe benefits escalate wildly.
This is not my favorite idea from my favorite Governor.
>Christie Takes Aim at School Administration Salaries
written by Matt Rooney.
July 15, 2010
blog.savejersey.com/2010/07/15/christie-takes-aim-at-school-administration-salaries.aspx
I can’t wait to see the NJEA try to argue against this plan, Save Jerseyans!
Governor Christie visited a Spotswood (Middlesex County) classroom today and announced plans for an administrative salary cap covering all of New Jersey’s school districts. Pegging pay increases to district size would remove some of the arbitrariness from the administrative pay process and save the taxpayers plenty of dough going forward. Superintendents can get an additional $5,000 for each district they cover, but school boards will not be permitted to go beyond the cap. Assemblymen Rible (R-Monmouth) and DiCiccio (R-Gloucester) have been tapped to introduce the legislation.
According to the Governor, 366 superintendents would see their salaries reduced with this cap in place. I’m looking at you, Dave Verducci.
More background:
Under the proposal, the maximum base salary that a district could pay a superintendent would rise with the size of the school district. The top salary for the superintendent of a K-8 district with fewer than 250 students would be $120,000. From there, salary maximums would gradually step up with the size of the school district to the point that the superintendent of a district with up to 10,000 students could be paid a maximum of $175,000. A superintendent in one of New Jersey’s 16 districts with more than 10,000 students could earn a higher base salary.
In addition, administrator compensation would be restructured to provide the opportunity for non-pensionable, individual year merit stipends if superintendents achieve significant, state-defined improvements in student learning from the year before.
This is the change teachers deserve, too.
It’s not fair to let promising young educators lose their jobs when fat cat administrators collude with their union reps and local school boards to maintain astronomically high salaries. Of course teachers need to start paying for their bennies and pensions at normal private sector levels. That’s clear, but school superintendent salaries, if you can believe it, have actually risen 46% since 2001… a $100 million kick in the ass for state taxpayers. Not a bad gig, huh? I’m going to be a superintendent in my next life, Save Jerseyans.
Example? My favorite Bergen superintendent, David Verducci, earns almost $190,000 annually. Laying him off would’ve freed up enough cash to save 247 teaching jobs in 2010. An extraordinary amount of public money is tied up in salaries for paper pushers!
What will be VERY interesting to see, as I mentioned at the beginning of my post, is how the NJEA responds to this latest toolkit proposal. Will they side with administrators who earn more than the Governor? Or will they support a measure that will save teaching jobs a free up additional funds for classrooms? In essence, it’s their last chance to be something other than a transparently partisan organization. Just don’t hold your breath waiting for a cathartic moment.
blog.savejersey.com/2010/07/15/christie-takes-aim-at-school-administration-salaries.aspx
