I will protect your pensions. Nothing about your pension is going to change when I am governor. - Chris Christie, "An Open Letter to the Teachers of NJ" October, 2009

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Questions about the 2% Cap

Here are the questions I have about the Sweeney-Christie 2% cap agreement:

1) If a district comes in under the cap, will there still be a school budget vote in that district?

2) Christie said the mechanism for passing this proposal is a "conditional veto" of S29, the Democrats' bill that would have put the cap at 2.9%. S29 states that:
The bill also eliminates the ability of a local unit or a school district to submit a separate public question to the voters to authorize the raising of additional tax levy.
Will the Sweeney-Christie agreement allow school districts to submit budgets to the voters great than the 2.0% cap? Or will this condition of S29 still be in effect?

3) If there are still votes on school budgets, when a budget is submitted to the voters, will it have to include the four "exemptions" of the Sweeney-Christie agreement: health care, pensions, capital expenses, and emergencies?

4) If there is a vote, and a budget is rejected, will it still be possible for a town government to approve a school budget over the 2.0% cap?

5) If a town does not have to include the exemptions when calculating whether their budget goes over the "cap," what incentives does that town have to rein in health care costs or capital expenses?

6) If a town does not have to include the exemptions when calculating whether their budget goes over the "cap," but a school district still has to include those exemptions in a school budget vote, doesn't that create a disparity between town governments and school districts in their incentives to curb spending on health insurance and capital expenses?

7) In the above scenario, why should teacher health care be subjected to the will of the voters, but town employee health care not be?

I'm sure I'll have more, but this is a start...

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