Posted on 03/14/2006 9:54:16 PM PST by Coleus
A Bergen County school chief was awarded more than a half-million dollars in extra pay for unused sick time and other benefits, including $300,000 that was paid to his estate after his sudden death in 2004.
The superintendent in Long Branch saw his income top $300,000 last year due to more than $110,000 in one-time buybacks and other payments.
And a former superintendent from Teaneck may have added as much as $20,000 to his annual pension when his salary was boosted with end-of-career stipends and pay for unused leave. That doesn't include the $60,000 consultant contract and retirement golf trip to Myrtle Beach.
These and dozens more examples are part of a scathing report on school administrator pay released by the State Commission of Investigation yesterday. The report detailed what it called widespread padding and "manipulation" of compensation, costing taxpayers millions of dollars in added, and often hidden, school costs. The extra perks have become common bargaining chips in a fiercely competitive market for administrators, the 165-page report acknowledged, creating what it called a "sky's-the-limit" contest that has gone haywire.
"All too often, the result is an unseemly spectacle reminiscent of sports teams and their competition for free-agent athletes -- with the cost, of course, underwritten ... by taxpayers," reads the report's executive summary. Titled "Taxpayers Beware: What You Don't Know Can Cost You," the report examined the contracts of more than 334 administrators in 71 districts, about a tenth of the state's school districts.
It recorded one superintendent with a $2,500 clothing allowance, more than 30 with district cars, and many more receiving healthy sums in annuities, insurance and unused sick and vacation time. The report noted that the general public is unaware of much of the extra pay, because it is typically listed in the minutiae of contracts
(Excerpt) Read more at nj.com ...
In NJ? I'm shocked, I tell you. Shocked!
The school officers make monster dollars, in any state. The bigger the district, the more they make. I never saw an income below six figures, and this was 10 years ago.
This is a monster source of waste in the public system. My experience is that most of them, with a few heroic exceptions, do not add much value.
All the while they cut programs for the kids, and then whine that they need to increase taxes so they can have more money *for the kids*.
Gee, this is such a surprise.
(End obligatory response to idiot ostrich media alert)
Funding for local school districts is now under control of the state. Nobody knows how much they are spending or how to control it. The schools are running wild, and the taxpayers are taking it in the shorts.
In other words, it is a Democrat's Paradise in New Jersey!
Ping
I live in NJ, and sadly this report is no surprise at all. :-(
And the education unions keep saying taxpayers do not spend enough on education.
We need all private schools, with no federal, state or local governments involved. Competition and consumer choice would take care of quality and price. Local and state taxes would be cut in half.
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