Response split on call for pay freezes
Like practically every school district in New Jersey, Willingboro is looking at tough times - possible layoffs and cutbacks from a projected loss of nearly $3.5 million in state aid.
So last Monday, interim Superintendent David Hespe, acting on a statewide request by Education Commissioner Bret Schundler, asked the district's three unions to freeze their pay next year to save money.
The next morning, one of the unions, the Willingboro Professional Educators Association, a 13-member unit representing department heads and other managers, voted unanimously to forgo a 4.5 percent contracted raise next year.
"We were trying to be Good Samaritans," said William Hurley, local president and district facilities director.
Districts across the state are having tough conversations like the ones in Willingboro, where the superintendent and the business administrator also agreed to a wage freeze. A new survey by the New Jersey School Boards Association finds many districts seeking givebacks from teachers' current contracts.
Meanwhile, a forceful Gov. Christie and the state's largest and most influential educators' union, the New Jersey Education Association, remain locked in a war of words for taxpayers' hearts and minds.
On Tuesday, Christie appealed to school boards and districts' unions to freeze salaries in collective bargaining agreements for the coming fiscal year and to have members contribute to their health benefits.
The school boards association supported the call, but the NJEA lashed back.
Union president Barbara Keshishian, in a written statement, accused Christie of bullying and attempting "to coerce