[INSPRATIONAL MUSIC STING] - We're now joined by Steve Beatty, who is president of the New Jersey Education Association, a longtime supporter of public broadcasting and our programming at Caucus Educational Corporation.

Steve, good to see you.

- Steve, always a pleasure.

Thank you for having me.

- We interviewed the governor today.

We're taping on the 17th of March, St.

Patrick's Day.

It'll be seen later.

Big part of that discussion was about fiscal matters.

One of the things we didn't get into that I want you to talk about is what is your understanding of the governor's position, her policy as it relates to public employee pensions and health benefits and the role of the state government in financing those?

- Yeah, thanks for that question.

First of all, it's important, the pensions, we know, and we're thankful that she's made the commitment as she promised to fully fund the pension, because that is something that we just cannot go on without.

As public employees, as a high school teacher myself for 25 years, I know I put my time in and that all educators deserve to be able to retire.

So we're very thankful that she has committed herself to the full pension payment.

Healthcare is another issue, right?

We all look at this situation involving just spiraling costs on the supply side.

And again, that's no fault of our public employees in that regard, but we need to make sure that we can find a way to work together, as we've always done, to ensure that all our public employees get good high quality healthcare, and that the costs aren't just passed on to us.

- And you don't control, it's not my job to explain your position, but you don't control healthcare costs.

-Correct.

- Health insurance companies, they establish those rates.

Right?

And so right now, is there a percentage that teachers pay of their own health benefits?

Is all of it paid by the state?

What is it?

- Yeah, so years ago under Chris Christie, we had our chapter, so health benefits were, when I first started teaching in 1993, health benefits program were part of the package, right?

Now it's part of the package, and you know, during the administration, you know, we were hit with now an increasingly high levy under what we call Chapter 78.

Which meant employees paid a percent of the premium, which has skyrocketed.

And that's, we saw what we call net negative, meaning we would get raises, but the raises would be chewed up by the increase in premium.

So Chapter 44, which we negotiated several years ago, disconnected that, and now we pay a percent of our salary towards our healthcare premiums.

- Got it.

Shift gears on this.

Talk to us about teacher recruitment and retention during these challenge times.

- Yeah, that's a big thing.

I mean, I knew when I was growing up and in third grade when I had Miss Zane, I knew I wanted to be a teacher.

The greatest job, she had all the chalk she could ever hope to have, you know, and I thought, "That's what I want to be."

And that's all I did.

So when I went to college at Rutgers, go RU, I became a teacher, right?

And you know, the recruitment wasn't an issue, but for a lot of reasons, but I'll also specifically single out healthcare, pensions, and our salaries, it's been a big drag.

I mean, we've seen the numbers drop precipitously.

You can look at any metric where the enrollment and the college prep are down.

We're losing teachers and educators all around the state because on the new pension system, they have to teach or work until they're 65 years old to get a savings account.

So among other things, the workload, the respect, the things that go on, but all of sudden that pensions, that benefits are a big reason why we're having recruitment and a retention problem.

- So what are the implications of that, Steve?

- The implications of that, we're, you know, we're struggling to maintain what's been a stellar workforce among, if not the number one public schools in the nation year after year after year, where we have a great cohort of the best and brightest that go into public education.

But now, when you see someone that says, "Hey, I can start at a salary that's better than a first year educator and get bonuses and maybe even work from home two, three, four, five days a week."

It's tough to compete to get those types of, again, the best and brightest into all our positions, whether classroom teachers, ESPs, or anything in between.

- You know what's tricky about this?

I live in the town of Montclair.

You know it well, right?

Right now, as we do this program, there was just a couple referendums on the ballot.

I don't know what's gonna happen.

- Yeah, they're closing two schools.

Yeah.

- And one of the emails we got as taxpayers in town, was about teachers potentially losing their jobs.

- Yeah.

- So is it become more of a reality, Steve, that as budgets get tighter locally, public school teachers are more at risk?

- Yes.

And not just the teachers, it's educators overall, because we're losing ESP (indistinct), losing bus drivers, custodians, we're getting outsourcing.

So the short answer is yes.

I mean, we're the canary in the coal mine.

When budgets get cut and things happen, we're the first ones to really feel the pinch of that.

By losing jobs, class sizes going up, which really hurts everybody, 'cause really, we all believe in the same thing.

And again, as a career educator, classroom teacher, every single student deserves a great quality public education delivered by a great educator.

And we're seeing that at risk.

We talk about budgets, and again, I'm biased.

There should never not be enough money for public schools.

And my poster on the wall, you can't quite see over here, says, from the 70s when I was growing up, "I long for the day when schools have every dollar they need, and the Air Force has a bake sale for a bomber."

Because it's about priorities.

And that's really we're showing our future generation of kids, and our educators, that the priorities just aren't there for them.

- So let's keep talking about money, in the couple minutes we have left.

The school funding formula.

Everybody, virtually everyone, Steve, "The formula has to be fixed.

The formula has to be revised."

And by the way, right after you, we have the Republican budget officer in the Senate, Declan O'Scanlon, Senator O'Scanlon.

I'm gonna ask him that question.

You're gonna say "Reform it," I'm gonna say "How," and then the conversation gets murky.

- It does.

- How?

Does it need to be reformed, Steve, does it need to be reformed?

- Listen, it's 18 years old, right?

2008.

So it's always time to look at something after that period of time.

I mean, the good news is after years of being underfunded, you know that Governor Murphy upped the funding there, Governor Sherrill now, again, with record funding.

So, but it is a factor of looking at the formula.

And there are a lot of, in 2008 when the formula was divined, there are a lot of things now occurring today that weren't back then.

Special education costs, English language learners, geographies, so many vagaries that have now impacted on the ability for the formula to deliver.

So I think it's always a good time.

We were more than willing.

And I sat on the governor's transition team, and we were more than willing and able to sit with her and her team and look at, you know, any kind of recommendations for modifications or changes.

- Before I let you go, one minute left.

You became a teacher, public school educator, because?

And don't say that she had a lot of, what was your teacher's name?

- Miss Zane.

- What school?

Where?

- No, that was at Seth Boyden School in Maplewood, New Jersey.

- I love it.

It wasn't the chalk, what was it?

- You know, it was just the idea of embracing the students and being seen, I felt, in her class.

And it's something that was always my hallmark, my first job, and I won't, you know, was in Westfield in an alternative school.

And I learned very quickly, if you're an authentic person, if you get kids to buy in, that you can do anything with them and they will work for you.

So that's really what it's about.

That I really had a drive to try to reach kids, to make sure they felt seen, they felt respected.

And let's go from there and see what we can do and what your potential is and how we unlock that.

- Hey, Steve, we're glad that you did that.

And also to you and all of the educators and those connected to education at the NJEA, we thank you for your service every day.

Thank you, Steve.

- Appreciate that.

Appreciate you.

Thank you so much.

- I'm Steve Adubato, that's Steve Beatty from the New Jersey Education Association.

We'll see you next time.

- [Narrator] State of Affairs with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

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