From the issue of Nov. 30, 2006.
Property tax burden due to unions
To the editor:
As I’m sure everyone has heard by now on the news the State of New Jersey is planning on an average 20 percent property tax reduction discount on your next property tax bill.
What many of you probably haven’t heard and what my intern friend down in Trenton has told me is that they only have enough money on hand to pull this off for exactly one year. In order to keep it going continuously year after year they are going to force the state teachers union and to a lesser extent, the state workers union into major givebacks.
In all likely hood it is going to take the form of replacing their "free" health benefits with one that forces them to contribute between 10-20 percent of the total premium cost (like most New Jerseyans currently do).
They are also going to force, as far as the by-laws will allow, a switch from taxpayer funded pensions to non-taxpayer funded 401(k) retirement plans. (At least for the younger and nontenured instructors).
The teachers union (and let me make a distinction here not individual teachers but the union that represents them) is planning on a protest rally in December which is what one would expect! What I take issue with though is that they claim to be protesting because they claim they didn’t cause the property tax problem.
My response to that is "oh, yes they did."
Every single time teacher contracts have come up for renewal the leaders of our local union, the HEA, have been out there with literature and sometimes even a bull horn proclaiming "Money buys education. Make the school board give us more money."
My favorite though is when they were marching in the rain waving yellow envelopes in their hand screaming "Give me more money or this resume is going in the mail."
Regardless of whether they believe its justified or not more money going to the teachers union always means higher property taxes. They did cause this.
The teacher’s union claims we have high property taxes because of all the mandatory programs we have to teach but that’s been debunked. Other states in the U.S. now have the same mandatory programs and many of them pay less than $1,000 per year in property taxes.
The union also claims it’s because the state won’t give its fair share of school funding. However, the state has been giving them advance warning "five years in a row" to stop the excessive and often unique spending on the teachers union because they didn’t have the extra funding to give but the union refused to listen and continuously raised its demands each year which raised your property taxes.
Six months ago I tried to set up a meeting with a ranking union officer from the HEA to discuss a decent compromise between what us taxpayers could afford and what they desired. Within five minutes I was being called a self-centered cheapskate homeowner and was asked to leave.
This is the extreme extent of their closed-mindedness. Do not feel any sympathy that they are being asked to pay for their health benefits and retirement plans. With an average teacher salary of $58,000 in New Jersey there is no need for sympathy whatsoever.
Mickey Lucano
Farm Road

