Battle Brews Between School Boards, Christie Admin.
TRENTON, NJ (WCBS 880) - Several school boards in New Jersey want to get around the pending salary cap and keep their superintendents in place.
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WCBS 880's Levon Putney reports
The boards are trying to renegotiate contracts with the superintendents now and extend those contracts to beyond February 7, 2011, when the salary cap goes into effect.
This has led to a brewing battle between those school boards and the administration of Gov. Chris Christie, which is trying to stop the districts from getting around the cap.
Dr. Richard Bozza, the head of the New Jersey Association of School Administrators, says they are considering legal action.
"Where any of our members who have not had the opportunity for the law to be followed are considering such action," Bozza told WCBS 880 reporter Levon Putney. "We would examine that and absolutely insist that the current law be followed."
Dr. Bozza says several school boards do not agree with the salary cap proposals, when it comes to paying enough to keep a good district leader.
On Monday, Christie said at a town hall meeting in Gloucester County's Washington Township, "Rochelle Hendricks, my Commissioner of Education, will be sending a letter out today to the county superintendent of schools in all 21 counties telling them there are to be no contracts renegotiated above the cap before the cap goes into effect. I will not stand for it. If we're asking teachers to sacrifice, administrators have to sacrifice too and they cannot be sitting here saying that they are some special privileged class of folks who deserve to make that kind of money when everybody else in this state is tightening their belt and making do with less. And so we're not going to have it."
