More Proof that NJEA Leadership Hid the Truth About Spending $45 Million of Dues on Sean Spiller’s Vanity Run for Governor
September 5, 2025Courageous Roselle Teacher Launches a Petition To Hold NJEA Leadership Accountable for Wasting $45 million of Dues and Hiding the Truth from Teachers
September 16, 2025Top NJEA execs were very well compensated during the 2023-24 school year, according to the most recent NJEA IRS Form 990. The NJEA headquarters staff did particularly well, with Executive Director Kevin Kelleher pulling down a whopping $871,987 — “Wall Street“-level pay, as the Star-Ledger described it in the past. The top 10 execs averaged almost $600,000 each — over 7x what a typical teacher made that year. These are the same execs who spent $45 million of teachers’ dues on NJEA President Sean Spiller’s (5th on the list) vanity run for governor — without teachers’ knowledge or consent. All of this takes a lot of money, so the NJEA keeps hiking teachers’ highest-in-the-nation dues. What a scam.
Top 10 NJEA execs averaged almost $600,000 in comp. 2023-24 was a bumper year for NJEA leadership compensation. Executive Director (ED) Kevin Kelleher’s $871,987 brings back memories of former-ED Ed Richardson, who (in)famously made $9.3 million over his 11 years at NJEA headquarters, or $854,000 a year. As it happens, the average compensation of almost $600,000 for the top 10 execs is the highest since the Ed Richardson era in 2018 and 2019. Note that nine of the top 10 are NJEA headquarters staff, not elected officers.
| 2023 Top 10 Executive Comp | Position | Compensation |
| Kevin Kelleher | Executive Director | $871,987 |
| Steve Swetsky | Former-ED | $788,190 |
| Thomas Hardy | Reg. Dir. UNISERV | $647,701 |
| Denise Policastro | Deputy ED | $607,268 |
| Sean Spiller | President | $577,305 |
| Steve Baker | Dir. Communications | $558,524 |
| Karen Kryven | Comptroller | $554,721 |
| Patrick Manahan | Reg. Dir. UNISERV | $458,030 |
| John Cottone | Dir. IT & Operations | $457,242 |
| Matthew DiRado | Manager HR | $452,308 |
| AVERAGE | $597,328 |
Over 7x the average teacher whose dues pay for it. Remember that the average New Jersey teacher made about $82,000 a year in 2023-24, so the top 10 averaged over 7x the average teacher, whose highest-in-the-nation dues paid for the lavish executive comp. Also remember that 2023-24 was precisely the time-frame where NJEA leadership had covertly spent $5 million of teachers’ dues on NJEA President Sean Spiller’s gubernatorial ambitions and was planning to spend another $40 million more. So these execs managed to play themselves extremely well while they plotted the profligate waste of $45 million of teachers’ dues on Spiller’s vanity run.
So the NJEA keeps hiking teachers’ highest-in-the-nation dues. Wall Street-level compensation and profligate political spending cost a lot of money, so NJEA leadership has to keep hiking New Jersey teachers’ dues, which are up almost 13% since 2023. At $1,127 a year, the NJEA’s dues remain the highest in the nation by far — 31% higher than second-place California Teachers Association and almost double Massachusetts. The total dues burden (including state, national, county, and local) now amounts to $1,585, which comes directly out of teachers’ paychecks. That’s a lot of money for a teacher making $82,000 a year, and particularly for beginning teacher making less than $60,000.
What a scam.