Over at Hot Air, Ed Morissey is all hot and bothered about his new superhero Chris Christie:
The Parsippany Board of Education voted 6-2 tonight to renew the contract for district schools Superintendent LeRoy Seitz, just hours after Gov. Chris Christie called the contract greedy and arrogant because it would exceed the proposed pay cap for superintendents.
The board voted to extend Seitz’s contract, which expires July 1, by another five years, paying him an average annual salary of $225,064. The contract was approved by the Executive Morris County Superintendent Kathleen Serafino on Friday, according to board attorney Mark Tabkin. …
While the governor’s proposed cap doesn’t take effect until February, the administration has been quick to criticize districts that are trying to circumvent the cap by renewing or approving new contracts.
If that is the height of arrogance and greed, I think we can all agree a modest tax increase on top of letting the Bush tax cuts expire on income over 250k a year would be no big deal. Right?
JGabriel
John Cole:
But the School Superintendent’s money is coming from the TAXPAYERS, while the banks money is coming from the …
Oh, I think I see the problem now.
.
ruemara
Look, if he was worthy, he would’ve inherited that money. Plus, he’s a parasite, working for the public.
Michael
Shouldn’t be a big deal, but we’re also talking about the same people who scream that Obama is tyrannical while complaining that he’s weak.
Cognitive dissonance in conservatism is a feature, not a bug.
If it weren’t, we’d be hearing apologies from those who held up signs that said Obama is Hitler while they complained that beret-clad panthers with big penises would keep old white people from voting.
Michael
Shouldn’t be a big deal, but we’re also talking about the same people who scream that Obama is tyrannical while complaining that he’s weak.
Cognitive dissonance in conservatism is a feature, not a bug.
If it weren’t, we’d be hearing apologies from those who held up signs that said Obama is Hitler while they complained that beret-clad panthers with big pen!ses would keep old white people from voting.
Jason S.
Duh. He is a government employee, so he does not deserve to be paid anything. If he really cared about schools, he would work for free.
Comrade Luke
What’s Christie’s problem?
The superintendent won’t make $250,000, which means gets a tax cut under the Obama tax plan. He’s middle class!
MattR
Hmm. This sounds familiar
It is almost as if he was practicing for how he was gonna deal with Bob Menendez 12 years later (and yes, I know he was not actually running against Menendez)
gbear
It’s only greed and arrogance if you’re making less than 250k.
If you make more than that, you’ve worked hard for it and deserve to keep every penny. Plus a couple more.
If you’re poor, you better be thankful for the crumbs we drop.
Maude
@gbear:
On NJ talk radio, the morning idiot rants about anything to do with education.
Christie pays attention to this and some think he screwed up The Race To The Top because he’s said to have given in to the teacher’s union.
The teacher’s union is the devil.
Fanshawe
Sorry, but the head of an enterprise with hundreds of employees that services 7250 patrons at 15 locations daily should obviously earn something like $8 an hour. It just makes sense.
Zifnab
Whelp, it looks like the Governor is trying to squelch the rich and deprive the hard working of their due pay. Someone should tell the Tea Party of this atrocity so we can hold a rally outside the Governor’s Mansion.
…
Any minute now. Tea Party outrage over authoritarian government control in 3… 2.. 1… Nothing? Crickets? Maybe Matlock is on.
MattR
@Zifnab:
Minor irrelevant detail. Christie does not live in the governr’s mansion. He stayed at his house in Morris County, whose county executive was the one that approved this contract after all of Christie’s whining.
EvolutionaryDesign
Would that it were…
evinfuilt
@Comrade Luke:
I thought that was the most important piece. Theirs no greed in middle class salary. Heck, I thought Cheney said 2mil a year was middle class, so this guy must be poor. Doesn’t sound very greedy to me.
gbear
@Fanshawe: Yea, but he gets summer off!!
Calouste
$225,064 ?
Isn’t that Christie’s yearly taxi bill?
Jeffro
Why don’t they just pay the Superintendent $250,001 – he would then move from “parasite” to “wealth and jobs creator”, problem solved.
Christie’s head would also explode, which is an added plus.
asiangrrlMN
@JGabriel: You win in the very first comment.
@gbear: I wanted to add something snarky, but you are spot-on. I will never get the mentality of these asshats.
Comrade Luke
@Jeffro:
Which would be hilarious, especially once people point out that he’s paying the higher tax rate on…one dollar of his income.
RosiesDad
@Jason S.:
I think he should consider paying the school board for the privilege. Sort of the same way college kids pay to do summer internships for Fortune 500 companies.
Funkhauser
Didn’t TPM just have a list out, noting that Chris Christie used the most money on deluxe hotels and car service while a US Attorney?
Michael D.
Christie is a coward. He should do the right thing and take a $300 taxi over to the Parsippany Board of Education and tell the Board to its face!
El Cid
Why can’t there be a free market choice between Superintendents, so that each parent can choose to hire a particular Superintendent service for their child?
Seitz
Man, when you have a relatively uncommon last name, it’s really strange to see it pop up in news articles.
Svensker
Hey, I’ve been to Parsippany. There is no need for the Super of Schools there to be making $250K there. None. It’s too fucking much. Plus he will get to retire making $200K a year for the rest of his life, along with gold plated health insurance. New Jersey real estate taxes are sky high because of fuckers like the Parsippany school superintendent and people are leaving the state because of it.
Just because somebody works for a state union or is connected with public schools doesn’t mean they deserve to live in a fucking mansion with a gold filled swimming pool. Private schools in NJ pay their teachers somewhere between $24K-$60K a year depending on the school and experience. Public teachers make about $90K, plus benefits up the wazoo. It’s out of whack and unsustainable.
HL_guy
I’ve also been to Parsippany, I live 40 minutes north of there, and if they want to pay their super 250K, that’s ok with me- what the market will bear and all that. New Jersey real estate taxes are high because New Jersey real estate values are high. You want a 5 bedroom, 2500 sq. foot rancher a 40 minute train ride from Manhattan, you’re gonna pay for it, & I don’t see why that shouldn’t include property tax. The property tax rates are proportional to those that I paid in Champaign, IL, it’s just that the same house costs 3X as much here.
As for people ‘leaving’ it ain’t the rich.
The real problem I see is unreasonable duplication of services- near me we have two ‘school districts’ each with a Super making 200K and a ‘finance officer’ making around $140K. As to whether they are ‘fuckers’ or not, I will give them benefit of the doubt. Each district consists of a single elementary school with < 500 students. These schools are approximately 500 yards apart. Not sure why 1 well-paid admin couldn't cover all 4 of these positions.
Seitz
@HL_guy:
I-L-L!
HL_guy
I-N-I!
Enlightened Liberal
Uh, where do you live where 90k buys a “fucking mansion with a gold filled swimming pool?” Not NJ, I would surmise. You have no idea what teachers make, do you? A teacher making 90k in NJ typically has a masters degree in a science. What do you think someone with that pedigree should make?
Pay teachers $40k in NJ and you get teachers that couldn’t cut it in the business world. It’s that invisible hand you conservatives talk about.
Svensker
@Enlightened Liberal:
.
Here’s a table of teacher salaries in Ridgewood NJ. You’re right that in order to get to $90K a teacher there needs a masters. My friend had a masters and was earning $90K and was teaching remedial English — not a job I’d want at any price, but I still think she was overpaid. My son went to a private school where most of the teachers had masters but they were being paid between $35-50K, depending on their time in school.
I don’t have a “thing” against teachers getting paid well. I do have a “thing” with public employees’ salaries being out of whack with the tax payers’ salaries who are funding them. And since the public employees are unionized and the government has used them to bolster voting, while playing funny money with the pension, the state has ended up in a huge fiscal mess. Teachers are complaining that they have to go to a $50 copay and that they’re not getting a cost of living raise. From where I sit, health insurance costs $12K plus a $50 copay, and I’m lucking to have a fucking job, let alone get a raise. Tell my homeless jobless friend who is housesitting for me — who also has a masters — how tough the teachers have it. He just interviewed for a managers’ job at a local chain store — salary would be $32K. It is the only interview he has had in over a year. Cry me a river.