All that’s left is for Governor Murphy to put pen to paper and New Jersey high school coaches will have their pay count toward their pensions, under a bill recently approved by both houses of the legislature.
Currently, stipend pay for coaches – and any other teachers who are paid additionally for extracurricular activities – does not count toward the Teachers’ Pension and Annuity Fund (also known as TPAF). The typical high school football coach makes about $10,000 a year for that job, and over the course of a long career, that could be a significant amount of money.
The measure – co-sponsored by Assemblyman Benjie Wimberly (D-Paterson), a former high school football coach himself at Paterson Catholic and Hackensack – would apply to anyone paid extra for extracurricular activities.
A second measure that would require head coaches to be offered three-year contracts, and assistants two-year deals, still hasn’t made it out of committee in either house in Trenton. That bill’s goal is to offer some sort of job security, since all coaches are appointed on a year-to-year basis, there is no “tenure” option as there is for teachers, and districts have the option to not bring them back for any reason, including pressure from parents concerned about their child’s playing time.