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| An August Night in Hoboken, NJ (August, 2019) |
A three-judge panel ruled high-ranking officials within Jersey City’s teacher’s union who spend the entirety of their working time to union matters cannot be paid by the city’s Board of Education, according to an August 21, 2019 story by John Hines of Hudson County View.
“Mindful of the principles of statutory construction, we conclude that N.J.S.A. 18A:30-7 does not empower the Board in this case to continue to pay the salaries and benefits of the president of the JCEA and his or her designee, while they devote their entire work-time to the business and affairs of the union,” Appellate Court Judges Jose L. Fuentes, Francis J. Vernoia and Scott J. Moynihan
The ruling affects the president of the Jersey City Education Association and his or her designee.
The appellate court decision reverses a previous superior court ruling that sided with the JCEA.
The court also says that the union president and his designee would not be able to be paid through sick or sabbatical leave, or a leave of absence, since they are still going to work on a regular basis
The ruling invalidates part of the JCEA’s bargaining agreement with Jersey City.
The initial suit was filed by the Goldwater Institute, a conservative think tank based in Arizona. That suit claimed two top JCEA officials were paid $1.2 million in public funds over a period of five years.
The Goldwater institute claimed the payments were made using release time. Wednesday’s ruling outlawed such payments, in addition to payments through sick time, leaves of absence and sabbaticals, on the basis that the officials are still working.
SUMMARY: New Jersey and Jersey City taxpayers filed the case to challenge release time—a practice that pays government employees to work exclusively for government unions, while still receiving their taxpayer-funded salaries and benefits. While on release time, taxpayer-funded union members engage in political activities, member recruitment, contract negotiations, grievance proceedings against their employer, and other activities that advance the purely private interests of the union.
The case challenged the collective bargaining agreement between the Jersey City School District and the Jersey City Education Association, which required the District to pay the salaries of two full-time teachers who did not spend their time educating Hudson County children, but rather performing full-time union work—costing taxpayers $1.1 million over the course of the agreement. Today, the New Jersey Court of Appeals sided with the taxpayers, saying that this practice meant that these teachers were “act[ing] exclusively as labor leaders,” rather than as “teachers who serve the day-to-day educational needs of the students of the district.” The court ruled that the practice in Jersey City is not authorized by statute, is “against public policy,” and that public funds can no longer be used for release time.
The union may decide to fight this ruling.
