Freeze!

North Jersey.com reports on the Guv's plan to extend the deadline for freezing teachers' salaries (I originally read it in the Star-Ledger, but, as usual, the story was light on details):

If school employees give up pay raises, the state does not have to pay the incremental increases in federal Social Security and Medicare taxes those hikes would have generated. In Christie's proposed budget, those increases amount to $27.4 million, and the governor said those savings could be passed along to districts to help mitigate sharp aid cuts. The overall proposed cut in school aid is $820 million.

$27.4 million? I used Ed Commish Bret Schundler's own numbers, and came up with $12 million. Of course, I took into account the loss of income tax revenue that would come from a wage freeze; did they? No one is asking.

But let's give them their number. Median teacher salary is about $60K; add another $10K for benefits. That's about 390 jobs. Out of 143,700 teaching and admin jobs. About 0.3%.

This scheme has always been a joke.