RUNAWAY PAY - The Tax Burden On John Q. Public series by Dr. B. Brooke

In New Jersey public police officers and teachers employees are getting $100,000 base salaries for the rank and file, generous pensions and no-cost health benefit packages. Meanwhile, the private sector is going downhill in the opposite direction.

The Bergen Record (Wednesday, July 19, 2006 ) Reports "As of the 2005 school year, Ridgewood employed 424 teachers, the second-highest number in Bergen County, after Hackensack's staff. The average Ridgewood classroom teacher's salary was $70,246. That works out to $30 million for teacher salaries. For an experienced teacher with a master's degree plus 30 college credits, the pay was $90,000. No matter what the superintendent and other top administrators were paid, it was peanuts by comparison with the teacher totals. " in an article entitled Linking cop, teacher pay to property taxes.

The editor concludes: "Trying to get police officers and teachers to give back some of their current pay and benefits is, realistically, a strategy unlikely to succeed.

What might be achieved, with bipartisan effort, is less costly contracts with new employees. A good case can be made for this, as a matter of fairness to taxpayers, some of whom will otherwise be literally taxed out of their homes. It will require courage and strength of conviction, though, and those qualities are always in short supply."

In the community of Emerson NJ, advocates for the reducing police force levels since that it would save significant money by without risk to public safety. The reduction would occur through attrition and no one would be laid off. The upshot was that the cops, defending current staff levels, defeated the plan. The borough council meeting and a threatened recall of the mayor of Emerson.

Or take the case of a NJ school superintendent $371,000 compensation. including an annuity, compensation for unused leave, an insurance policy, and contributions to his state pension account.

This superintendent served simultaneously as leader of three school districts: Bergen County Special Services; Bergen County Technical Schools and Englewood Academies.

"But school-superintendent pay is not the crux of the problem. As with police officers, it is the pay and benefits that the rank-and-file, the teachers, are getting. Those figures, as documented by The Bergen Record's series, are high and rising inexorably."

Enter Competition

Those employees currently entrenched in the public system have erected barriers hidden behind union negotiations that threaten home owners. They are holding homeowners hostage thru ever increasing taxes to fund their appetite.

The solution may be in school choice. Publicly funded private school to enter the playing field. Educating children to too important a task to be left to a government monopoly. Look at the choices one has in the private market to buy a car. Should not that privilege be offered parents and students for their education?

How about towns hiring a police force for equivalent wages that are equivalent to Costco or Home Depot employees wages? The job skills need to being a cop exist in just about every able bodied citizen on the street. It's a desire thing. Ex military police people probably make good cops. Affordable to the taxpayer cops are necessary. If someone wants to be a high priced cop they should try getting a bodyguard job for the rich and famous. Our towns need Costco / Home Depot priced cops.

Erecting higher education requirements do not produce better teachers or cops. One is no better a cop or teacher than he or she is a person. It's a personal issue. On the job education comes into play thru experience and love for the job, not thru focus on book and lectures alone.

Dr. B. Brooke

“A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.” – Dwight Eisenhower, 34th U.S. president