Jersey shore towns like Margate, Ventnor & Brigantine already have some of the highest teacher salaries in the state. Nonetheless, all three feature even higher teacher salaries for 2019, even as student enrollment declines.
The Margate School District, with it’s two half-empty schools, has the 4th highest, median teacher salaries in the State of New Jersey.
2019 New Jersey median teacher salaries. See top 15 below:
- Northern Valley Regional, $107,787 Down 0.99%
- Passaic County Vocational, $98,347 Up 2.93%
- Carlstadt-East Rutherford, $97,264 Up 11.16%
- Margate City, Atlantic $96,145 Up 3.08%
- Edison Twp, Middlesex $93,758 Down 2.99%
- Brigantine City, Atlantic $93,649 Up 1.90%
- Millburn Twp, $92,784 Up 8.05%
- Pascack Valley Regional, $92,000 Up 3.08%
- Atlantic City, $91,880 Down 4.78%
- Hackensack City, $91,810 Up 3.61%
- River Dell Regional, $91,229 Up 11.92%
- Ocean City, $90,875 Up 1.09%
- East Rutherford Boro, $90,238 Up 0.64%
- Ventnor City, $89,450 Up 1.71%
- Closter Boro, $88,793 Up 1.18%
Marc Silver: The mayor (of Ventnor) solved a budget problem 18 months ago. She (Beth Hotlzman) authorized borrowing $9 million dollars to balance the budget rather than increase the taxes. The school board said no and the mayor voted to override and borrow $9 million. So it doesn’t matter how much we pay teachers, just borrow more. It’s not the teacher salaries. It’s the complete mismanagement of the school budget. It’s easier to borrow than spend the time to fix the budget. Simple math, they run out of the $9 million borrowing in 3 years. They have a hole in the budget of about $4 million. Then they either borrow $4 million every year or a large tax increase while paying back the previous $9 million debt. Do the math. Even an enormous ratable increase won’t solve this mess. Teachers are scapegoats here.
The mayor (of Ventnor) solved a budget problem 18 months ago. She (Beth Holtzman) authorized borrowing $9 million dollars to balance the budget rather than increase the taxes. The school board said no and the mayor voted to override and borrow $9 million. So it doesn’t matter how much we pay teachers, just borrow more.
Margate also has the highest ranked middle school in Atlantic County as well, and ranked just below the Top 10% mark in the state–so in short, the schools here are excellent. Furthermore, teacher salaries are based entirely on years of experience on a salary guide–nothing more–so a high average salary for a district means nothing more than they have a lot of experienced teachers on staff. These districts only last a few years in these “highest salary” rankings as there is inevitably a wave a retirements and then a lot of new inexperienced teachers hired, and the cycle repeats itself. Finally, anyone who thinks a salary of $91k is overpaid in this area of million dollar beach homes is also misguided.
Silly stat. Teachers don’t leave !!! So they’re aren’t replaced with younger teachers at low salaries to bring the MEDIAN down … why is this so hard to understand ??
Remember these are salaries for a 9 month period