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I'm 100% with you on this one. Thank you for keeping this real.

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The BOE is top heavy with professional staff pulling down 6 figure salaries.

I've got to strongly agree with Linky.

If you're going to seek any possibility of concessions from the teachers' union, you should be seeking concessions also from BOE management. It would be grossly unfair to ask the teacher's to bear 100% of the burden of this year's deficit without asking management to do the same.

That being said, the school budget remains a ticking time-bomb. We should expect and plan for further reductions in state aid contributions in the coming years.

There are many areas of financial waste, which need to be comprehensively addressed -- line-by-line. Is our elected Board up to the task? I'm not so sure. At the end of the day, the responsibility lies right there with them.

It's all about the budget and the efficiency with which that budget is spent. Today, I think it would be a fair characterization to say that the school budget is bloated and inefficient in its spending.

I'd like to hear from BOE candidates, what they propose to get the budget under control, while still maintaining the quality our children deserve.

Hows about the following skip their raises along with the teachers; every single office worker who works for the board, janitors, principals, cafeteria staff, security guards, cleaning people, bus drivers, and last, but not leaset, DR. EPPS WHO IS THE HIGHEST PAID SUPERINTENDENT IN THE STATE!

Why is it that only the poor bastards who are down in the trenches working with the wonderful, well-behaved students in our system are being asked to skip their raise?

Sorry 'bout the rant, but as a former teacher, who has worked in the JC public schools this really irritates me. Most people wouldn't do that job if it paid triple what the teachers get.

How dare they ask them to forego a raise.

McCann: Teachers should forgo raises

Wednesday, April 01, 2009
By KEN THORBOURNE
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

Needing $23 million in savings to balance its books, the Jersey City Board of Education meets tomorrow night to adopt a budget.

The district is considering upwards of 160 layoffs to make ends meet, according to board member and former mayor Gerald McCann. But board member Sue Mack said the district hopes to avoid layoffs through attrition and curtailing new hires.

"Every year we would hire around 200 persons around this time," Mack said. "This year we're not doing that."

Jersey City district officials would not comment except to say that Deputy Superintendent of Schools Frank Dooley will make a presentation on the budget tomorrow night.

McCann called on the teachers union, whose latest four-year pact with the district expires Aug. 31, to forgo raises for its 3,500 members to avoid layoffs for the fiscal year that begins July 1.

"Until the economy improves everyone should be happy to have a job," McCann said. "If the union puts off wage increases for the next 12 months we wouldn't need layoffs. I am asking for the union to work with the board."

Tom Favia, president of the Jersey City Teachers Association, said his members see no reason to cross that bridge.

"No one has told me anything about it," Favia said. "Until I hear about it officially, I'm not saying anything. We have never done it (gone without raises) in the past."

The introduced 2009-10 budget totals $629.8 million, of which Jersey City taxpayers will kick in $93 million. State aid to the district was frozen at $417.7 million.

The board meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. at School 11, 886 Bergen Ave.