In the Matter of Robbinsville Township Board of
Education v. Washington Township Education Association
(A-32-15; 076497)
The Court rejects the Appellate Division’s mistaken reading of Keyport to authorize the Board’s unilateral alteration of a collectively negotiated agreement. Keyport does not stand for the proposition that anytime a municipal public employer can claim an economic crisis, managerial prerogative allows the public employer to throw a collectively negotiated agreement out the window. To the contrary, Keyport painstakingly emphasized the significance of an agency of State government enacting a temporary emergency regulation to provide local governmental managers with enhanced prerogatives. The regulation’s existence made all the difference in Keyport, and there is a lack here of an authorizing temporary emergency regulation that permitted temporary furloughs. Keyport does not support the award of summary judgment to the Board.
