A Veto Is Taxpayers' "Last Best" Chance

By Ambrose Bierce, Editor-in-Chief

The New Jersey Education Association's iron grip on the state legislature couldn't be farther from obvious last week. In a decision with only one Republican legislator, Joseph Kyrillos, voting in the negative, the state Senate approved a bill that would eliminate local school boards' right to impose its "Last Best Offer" in contract negotiations with teacher unions.

So-called "last best offer" is a tool that can be employed by a school board once labor negociations have been exhausted.

In other words, if after an extended period of time, the teachers' unions fail to concede or continue to make irrational demands, the school board can implement its last best offer, hence its name.

The all-powerful and campaign-contributing state teachers union supported the bill to eliminate this tool, claiming that it could be abused.

On the contrary, in the last thirty years, Last Best Offer has only been used fifteen times.

In addition, the bill sets forth no anti-strike provisions. Teacher strikes are illegal. They are also costly, as school districts must pay to employ "substitutes" while the regular teachers stop working. Nevertheless, current law is unclear in how violators should be punished. The New Jersey School Boards Association asked that Trenton include in the bill a set list of fines for unlawful teachers. Of course, the NJEA won that amendment battle, too.

Governor McGreevey is already dangerously unpopular with taxpayers and parents in New Jersey and signing this bill into law won't do him any better. It's time that the governor put anti-taxpayer and anti-education special interests like the NJEA aside and do what's right: veto the "Last Best Offer" bill. It's taxpayers' last best chance.