Senate Budget Committee member Senator Declan O’Scanlon (R-Monmouth) released the following statement on the newly finalized teacher contract in Jersey City, and the lawsuit filed by the Jersey City School Board demanding more state aid.

In his statement, O’Scanlon calls the contract a shameful plan to skirt around critically-needed benefit reforms, at the expense of innocent kids and taxpayers in Jersey City, and across the state:

“It takes a lot of guts to sue the State for more school funding, and then finalize a teacher contract that amounts to a shameful give-away that could negatively impact kids statewide. The audacity of such hypocrisy is astounding. Every family and taxpayer in New Jersey should be appalled.

“This contract diverts precious financial resources that should be going to kids in Jersey City classrooms. It’s also shameful ploy to get around our responsibility to enact the benefit reforms we have to pass to save the public pension system from going bankrupt.

“At some point, school board officials and local leaders in Jersey City are going to have to acknowledge their culpability in New Jersey’s fiscal crisis. They have received far more than their fair share for years.

“Bad contracts and PILOT programs have starved the local school district of resources, and led them to this point. The rest of New Jersey’s taxpayers should not have to pay to remedy these self-inflicted wounds. It’s not their responsibility.

“This contract and the lawsuit need to be tossed out, and rampant PILOT policies need to be reigned in and accounted for. Then, education advocates and officials from Jersey City and across the state need to come to the table and work with us to enact the school funding and fiscal reforms necessary to get New Jersey back on track – or else kids and taxpayers everywhere will pay the price.”