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June 2010

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Unemployment Workshops

4:00 pm at WHS Cafeteria

Thursday June 3, 2010 (Non-Certified employees)

Monday June 7, 2010 (Certified Employees)

Legislative Information

As Governor Christie's Tool Kit bills are introduced we will continue to keep you updated. As of now we are asking all of our members to reach out to our local legislators with the attached message.

Tax Justice!

It is an understatement to describe public education as embattled these days. But we need to keep our eye on the one problem that is at the core of all the battles we are fighting. For many years, New Jersey has been funding the Woodbridge Township School District inadequately, and next year the governor has proposed slashing that low level of funding by over 30%. For all the nonsense about “death wishes” and “drug mules”, the real problem for us is inadequate school funding.

We would not be facing increases in class size, reductions in programs and services for children, the privatization of jobs, or demands for a wage freeze if the state government appropriately funded us. Within our organization and within our larger school community, we would not be struggling to overcome divisiveness. With adequate state funding, the taxpayers of Woodbridge would not be overburdened as they have usually been in recent years.

So now that the school budget has been defeated and more cuts are anticipated, it is very important for us to focus our effort to obtain from the State of New Jersey more funds than Governor Christie wants to give us for next year.

Here are the basics of this fight–

• At the same time that Governor Christie is cutting school aid by 820 million dollars, he is also allowing a cut in the income tax rate for the wealthiest citizens of the state to reduce state revenue by approximately the same amount.
• The combined cuts in school and municipal aid are not only causing the loss of jobs and services, but property tax increases are likely to be the greatest in memory, regardless of election outcomes.
• Research shows that the governor’s priorities are exactly backward. The real tax problem in New Jersey is a matter of property taxes, yet his policies are driving up property taxes in order to give an income tax break to the wealthy.
• The Democractic leadership in the state legislature opposes the governor’s priorities and has called for a continuation of the so-called “millionaire’s tax” and the restoration of school aid.

Most people in New Jersey have begun to see through the governor’s propaganda. High income people are typically more concerned about paying income tax than property tax, and Christie is serving their interests. To do so in a deep recession, he has to cut spending deeply, and his targets, including public education, are the services upon which middle and lower income people depend.

Christie’s attack on NJEA is really a political shell game. He is hiding his real agenda and trying to whip up fear and anger against us. The good news is that lies and hidden motives will always be exposed in time, as long as clear thinking people stand up and tell it like it is!

The strange thing about the fight with the governor is that any citizen of our state would buy into his argument for even one moment. We are less than two years removed from a financial meltdown in which trillions of dollars in wealth went down the drain because of the greed and manipulations of financial industry executives. Tax revenues have dried up as a result. Now Christie tries to peddle the idea that the problem is NJEA members. We are not the problem!

In the coming weeks, please join our campaign to expose the governor’s motives for what they are and to support the legislators who stand up in behalf of the interests of lower and middle income people of our state.

Brian Geoffroy
President

Woodbridge Township Education Association
34 Green Street, Suite A
Woodbridge, NJ 07095
Phone: 732-634-5028 * Fax: 732-634-8521

President: Brian Geoffroy

Administrative Secretary: Lucille Ginda

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The Unity Symbol

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