Thursday, April 17th, 2008
It just astounds me how clueless New Jersey politicians are.
Today, Assembly Speaker Joe Roberts proposed eliminating property tax rebates. He thinks the state can more efficiently provide relief by not squandering $12 million annually. Rather, he is in favor of providing direct relief by providing an income tax credit. There’s legislative support for this:
“Let’s give it to them right on their taxes and save some sort of money,” said Karrow, R-Hunterdon.
What was Gov. Corzine’s response to this idea?
Corzine spokeswoman Lilo Stainton said the governor will “take a serious look at the proposal.”
“But there’s no reason to believe it would provide any serious savings,” Stainton said.
Uh huh.
Roberts’ idea has merit. It would be even better if the state just reduced the taxes upfront and not collect too much in taxes to begin with.
Of course, eCache readers are not new to this idea at all.
Posted in New Jersey, Politics | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, August 15th, 2006
Two weeks ago I documented the $1.5 million waste of taxpayer money to teach state prisoners. Not that teaching prisoners is a waste, but the outsourcing of a no-bid contract paid directly from the state coffers rather than from the DOC (who didn’t want this program to begin with) budget.
On top of all this, the Bergen Record reported today that in addition to the contract, New Jersey taxpayers have funded separately Life Skills cooperate headquarters in Atlanta, GA to the tune of $385,000. Nobody seems to understand why the state would be funding the corporate headquaters of a contracted entity.
Furthermore, when a Bergen Record reporter showed up at the address in Atlanta, there was no Life Skills office.
The Avrahams opened the Atlanta office three years ago to expand their business in the South based on the profits earned in New Jersey.
But no one inside the wood-paneled suite at 1401 Peachtree St. could point to its actual office.
The company’s telephone service has been suspended for some time, said receptionists who also serve dozens of other businesses in the office building.
Elinah Avraham is one of the owners of Life Skills. She balked at providing any details about the Atlanta office.
It’s not like we are funneling money from New Jersey.
Actually, that is exactly what this looks like.
Remember, the services Life Skills porovide New Jersey inmates are already being served by New Jersey employees. State DOC employees who earn a salary, benefits, and retirement from New Jersey taxpayers are hired to teach inmates. But then someone (and I have not heard who is responsible for this yet) hired Life Skills to duplicate the service. The DOC said it didn’t want Life Skills. The governor said it happened before his watch (although he did not veto the budget item when he increased your taxes to pay for it).
But most troubling is the fact that Avraham and her husband have kicked back more than $600,000 in campaign contributions to New Jersey politicians.
To sum this mess up: the state has an unusual contract that pays a company directly from the state instead of the controlling agency. The agency responsible for overseeing this contract did not want the services. It appears the Legislature inserted this contract in the budget in 1994 (Whitman Administration). The contract has changed over the years to knock out the $200,000 consultant fees, but inserted $185,000 to fund the corporate offices in Atlanta of the hired company. No one can find the offices in Atlanta. The services provided are already paid for with New Jersey state workers.
I am reminded of the old Cheech and Chong routine: “It looks like dog shit. It smells like dog shit. It tastes like dogshit. It must be dog shit.”
Posted in New Jersey, Politics | No Comments »
Monday, May 22nd, 2006
The Schools Construction Corp. (SCC) is broke. It blew through $8.6 billion of taxpayer money and completed about one-third of the projects it was supposed to have completed. But that doesn’t keep it from bollixing up education in the Garden State.
When the state Supreme Court mandated full day preschool be offered in all Abbott districts, Millville Public Schools scurried to find classroom space. It resolved that problem by renting 18 trailers from SCC. These were set up in the parking lot of Holly Heights School on Rt. 49. For three years, Millville provided preschool from these trailers.
Eventually, the city with the help of SCC opened the Holly Child Family Center at Wheaton Village. With the program having moved, the trailers at Holly Heights were now empty.
Millville Senior High is overcrowded. Millville requested that they move the trailers from the elementary school to the high school. SCC said it would move the trailers. But SCC is broke and cannot afford to move the trailers.
Millville offered to pay to move the trailers across town. But you guessed it, dear reader. The SCC said only it can move the trailers. Because it is broke, the trailers sit abandoned displaying the gross inefficiency of the system.
If I were grand poohbah, I would sue SCC to remove their abandoned property from city property. This is the agency that Governor Corzine wants to entrust with more of your tax dollars.
Posted in Education, New Jersey | 1 Comment »
Saturday, May 6th, 2006
It has come time to overhaul the New Jersey Commerce, Economic Growth and Tourism Commission.
Several months ago it hired a firm at a fee of $260,000 to come up with a new state slogan. New Jersey and You: Perfect Together was going to be retired in favor of what this firm came up with. That firm that former Acting Governor Dick Codey hired came up with New Jersey: We’ll Win You Over. It was resoundly criticized and to Codey’s credit, he killed it, albeit after the more than quarter-million dollar check cleared.
Next up was to open a campaign to the public. The public responded with more than 11,000 entries. The winning one was Come See for Yourself.
News today is that Come See for Yourself has been scrapped. It seems like other states, namely West Virginia, have used this in the past. The AP article says that there is a legal obstacle to using the slogan:
State tourism officials say they have canned the slogan after it was unable to pass legal muster because some states, including West Virginia, have used it in the past.
The New Jersey Commerce, Economic Growth and Tourism Commission has bollixed this slogan miserably. Most folks seem comfortable with the existing slogan, much like they are with their self-serve gasoline. A lot of money has been spent after the initial squandered $260,000 to come up with nothing. That is hardly efficient. Governor Corzine, clean house. Someone needs to pay for this mess.
Posted in New Jersey | 6 Comments »
Saturday, April 22nd, 2006
Ken Adams takes to town the perceived bias in an AP article this week about No Child Left Behind (NCLB).
Reporting of school test scores in the aggregate tells the system how the school is performing across the board, and allows the school teachers and administration to take action toward helping those students who aren’t making the cut.
The question is how do you know who is not making the cut if the data are not disaggregated?
NCLB has a lot of rules to it. The above may seem to be straightforward to one outside the system, but it dismisses what is actually happening in schools.
NCLB requires disaggregation of the data. Why? Because the way the law is written, by 2014, every student (regardless of race, sex, socio-economic class, special ed status, etc.) has to pass his state standardized test.
What will happen if all students do not do that? That is the big question. I suspect that money will be withheld from failing schools.
The way NCLB is written, long before then, administrators and staff are to be removed.
There are 40 indicators of whether a school is meeting Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP). If a school fails to meet any of those indicators, it is essentially in an “early warning” state. If improvements aren’t shown, that EW state escalates . . . eventually to removal of the administration and after that, staff.
As a prospective school administrator, this could be a concern. Do I want to walk into the fire, as it were, knowing my head could roll if my students do not perform? The answer is unequivocally Yes! While those on both sides of the aisle would rather reduce my benefits package and blame public school teachers for all that is wrong with America, there are some educators who actually desire to initiate reform and are willing to be accountable for the work we do.
Have you read one article that spoke about administrators being removed? No, of course not, because NCLB is being watered-down at every turn.
Yet, schools, both here in NJ and across the nation, are not meeting the standards. All those 40 indicators have to do with how each sub-group performs on the test.
While as a whole a school may be functioning well, if black girls on the free-lunch program, or special ed boys, or any other “bundle” of demographics do not meet the goal (10% increase from the previous year’s BM), then the school has failed.
What happens then is that the schools scurry about trying to raise the scores of those who are deficient . . . often to the detriment of others. The “average” students receive little these days. It is all about catering to those in need.
Gifted programs are being gutted nationwide to pay for the extra services to those “in need”. Think of the effect that has.
This is what NCLB has wrought. I have been saying it for a dozen years now: the federal government has absolutely no role in education. None! Case law supports this. The Constitution supports this. Reason supports this.
Yet, billions are handed out nationwide (NJ recieves less than it contributes) to re-distribute wealth and weigh down an already inefficient system.
This isn’t about race, Ken. This is only about money.
Posted in Education | 2 Comments »
