Average teacher salaries in Warren County top $60,000, reach as high as $90,000

"It's not us or you that the governor's pointing at as far as exorbitant salaries. It's not Belvidere," Swaneveld told them. "You have earned your salary for your dedication."

Average salaries among teachers in Warren County's high schools this school year range from $56,000 in Belvidere to $67,655 in the Warren Hills Regional School District, according to data provided by school officials last week.

Average salaries in the county's other three high school districts are $67,222 in Hackettstown, $66,994 in Phillipsburg and $59,265 in the North Warren Regional School District, according to officials.

District officials said higher salaries offered in other parts of the state, however, have kept some teachers out of Warren County.

North Warren Regional Superintendent Brian Fogelson said the district previously hired new teachers only to see them instead take jobs in other counties with higher starting salaries. In response, the district has raised its starting pay, he said.

"It's a matter of location and it's a matter of competiveness in salary," Fogelson said.

Highest paid in 2009-10

In Warren County, the highest high school teacher salaries in the 2009-10 school year range from $81,800 in Belvidere to $90,489 in the Hackettstown School District, according to school officials.

Of the county's other three high school districts, the highest salaries paid are $87,605 in Phillipsburg, $85,235 in Warren Hills Regional and $85,100 in North Warren Regional, school officials reported.

High schools in Warren County still fell behind colleagues one county south. Hunterdon Central Regional High School teachers earn as much as $94,770 this school year, according to Hunterdon Central Regional Business Administrator/Board Secretary Ray Krov.

Of the six area schools that provided salary data, the Phillipsburg School District has budgeted the most money during the current school year for teachers' salaries -- about $24.2 million for 362 teachers. That's 47 percent of Phillipsburg's total 2009-10 budget, Business Administrator William Bauer said.

Steve Baker, spokesman for the New Jersey Education Association, said salaries paid to teachers are reflective of the cost of living in New Jersey. Teachers spend an entire career in education before reaching the higher salaries, Baker said.

Baker added that teachers should earn a salary deserving of professionals with advanced degrees who are performing difficult jobs.

"Teachers are not overpaid," Baker said.

Pay hikes supported

Some members of the public believe teachers aren't paid enough, according to two recent polls.

In a January poll conducted by Quinnipiac University, 44 percent of respondents said public school teacher salaries were "about right." Twenty-two percent said teachers' salaries were "too high" and 28 percent said they were "too low."

The survey included 1,175 New Jersey voters.

According to the highlights of 2009 Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of the Public's Attitudes Toward the Public Schools, "Americans estimate that teacher salaries are lower than what they believe teachers should receive."

That poll's findings are based on telephone interviews from June 2009 with 1,003 adults across the nation.

Fogelson said most teachers are not overpaid when one considers the task given to them to prepare children for their futures. Many teachers spend extra time preparing lessons, correcting papers and providing quality feedback to students, he said.

Teachers who "are doing a quality job are putting in hours and hours of time," Fogelson said.