Newly settled contracts reported to the New Jersey School Boards Association show average raises of 3.35 percent for the coming school year. That's down from a 4.35 percent average for all teachers this year.
"The numbers are starting to reflect the economic realities and that's what everybody wants at this point," NJSBA spokesman Frank Belluscio told The Record. "We want to make sure contracts are in line with what the community can afford. We're very enthusiastic that the downward trend will continue."
This trend is evident among 33 contracts settled since January. Looking ahead, average raises in these districts drop further to 3.12 percent in 2011-12.
These agreements represent only a fraction of roughly 600 districts statewide but show the intense pressures on current contract negotiations.
Gov. Chris Christie has cut state aid to districts by $820 million for the coming school year, called on teachers to accept one-year wage freezes and repeatedly sparred with the state's largest teachers union. Meanwhile, taxpayers showed their frustration about paying some of the highest property taxes in the nation by voting down most school budgets in April.
If other districts follow suit, average raises statewide would fall below 4 percent for the first time in at least a decade. The 3.35 percent average raise among the new contracts excludes a dozen districts where teachers took one-year wage freezes; including those would bring the average raise down to 2.14 percent.
However, some school boards might not have reported new contracts to their association yet.
Dumont Superintendent Emanuele Triggiano has witnessed the economic climate's effect at the bargaining table firsthand.
He said that after two years of negotiations, his board expects to approve a contract with raises under 4 percent for the coming year, and teachers would vote on it shortly. For the first time, as law now requires for settlements, the teachers will also chip in 1.5 percent of their pay for health benefits.
"Teachers have been hammered in the media for quite a while, but we've been working behind the scenes to come up with something palatable for everyone," Triggiano said. "We put together a tremendous compromise for the community."
The median salary for teachers in New Jersey is $59,700, according to The Record's analysis of state data. Not all teachers get the average raise for their contract; raises come from a pool and are distributed at different percentages along a salary guide. Those guides vary among districts.
New Jersey Education Association spokeswoman Kathy Coulibaly said she could not confirm the NJSBA data on lower raises but said it sounded "in the ballpark."
"Contracts are always negotiated in the real world," she said. "Economic conditions have an impact. This is one of the reasons we're so concerned the governor is trying to impose artificial limits on what those settlements may look like with his 2.5 percent cap."
The union argues that raises should be set locally through collective bargaining. Christie is pushing for a constitutional amendment that would create a 2.5 percent cap on the annual increase in the property tax levies by school districts, municipalities and counties; that cap would limit public employee pay. Local governing bodies could ask voters for permission to exceed the cap.
The governor's spokesman, Michael Drewniak, declined to comment on the data showing a decline in teacher raises, saying the group of new contracts was too small to assess.
Even so, Belluscio, at the school boards association, said the early data was telling. He said average raises began to decrease in 2004-05, when they hit 4.68 percent, but the recent one-year drop was more dramatic.
"There's a very strong downward trend in settlements and we expect that trend to continue," he said.
