LeRoy Seitz was a nobody until very recently. Governor Christie, in his targeted attack on bloated public school administrations that constantly drive our property taxes to nation-leading levels, made Mr. Seitz famous.
Clearly not being able to handle going back to his normal life, cowering from his now infamous contract negotiation that Christie deemed to be the “definition of greed an arrogance,” Seitz and the school board are suing the state to compel the acting Education Commissioner and the Morris County Superintendent to accept the new contract.
Just to recap, Seitz’s new contract starts at a whopping $212,020 per year, and increases by 2% every year after that, making his salary a nice $234,065 by the end of the term. Governor Christie announced earlier this month that he would institute a cap on superintendent salaries that would depend on the number of students in a district. Under the new cap, Seitz would be limited to a salary of $175,000 for next year.
The school board is filing suit in the Appellate Division after County Superintendent Kathleen Serafino ordered the board to rescind the contract. Seitz and the board claim that no one in the state told them that Seitz’s contract would be subject to the new cap, and that since the cap does not take effect until February of next year, they are simply complying with the current law.
This is the typical operation of school boards in New Jersey. Where I happen to live, our school budget was voted down last year, like many other districts, by an overwhelmingly angry majority. This required the board here to make cuts, which they obviously threatened to do by firing teachers, cutting after school programs, cutting sports, and anything else that affects the education and development of young minds in New Jersey. What they, of course, would not touch was the bloated administration that had grown tremendously since I was a student (and that wasn’t all that long ago, Save Jerseyans).
The situation here was actually so bad, so shady, so corrupt, that just the night before the school board was scheduled to meet with our municipal government to make cuts, they passed brand new contract extensions for all administrators at 11:00PM. All with great increases that we simply could not afford. Our students were forced to suffer and sacrifice to enrich the administration. Governor Christie is finally trying to put an end to this pathetic practice and somehow the board thinks it should have it’s day in court? I beg the people of Parsippany, make this end. Run a full slate of school board candidates this year who actually care about the education of your children and not the wallets of public professionals.
Don’t get me wrong, Save Jerseyans, I am usually the first person to argue against salary caps. The market should decide the fair wage of necessary and hard working school superintendents. God knows that our education system needs innovative ideas and leadership that can turn things around. But $234,000? For a district of that size? In an economy such as this one, I find it seriously hard to believe that capable individuals with better plans than the “Poster Boy” cannot be found. This is not a market wage, its crony capitalism at its best. Reform is coming, it may not be moving as fast as we all would like, but there is still plenty of time for the Governor to get these systems in line. Let’s just hope the court does the right thing and dismisses this utter waste of taxpayer time and money.
