SYLLABUS

(This syllabus is not part of the opinion of the Court. It has been prepared by the Office of the Clerk for the 

convenience of the reader. It has been neither reviewed nor approved by the Supreme Court. Please note that, in the 

interest of brevity, portions of any opinion may not have been summarized.)

In the Matter of Robbinsville Township Board of Education v. Washington Township Education Association

(A-32-15) (076497)

Argued September 27, 2016 -- Decided November 29, 2016

LaVecchia, J., writing for a unanimous Court.

In this appeal, the Court considers whether its determination in Borough of Keyport v. International Union 

of Operating Engineers, 222 N.J. 314 (2015), supports a general proposition that, in times of economic crisis, a 

school board may unilaterally impose furlough days on teaching staff members in contravention of the parties’ 

collective negotiation agreement governing terms and conditions of employment. 

The collective negotiation agreement (Agreement) between the Robbinsville Township Board of Education 

(Board) and the Washington Township Education Association (Association), the major union representative for the 

employees of the Board, provides that teachers’ salaries would be based on the number of school-year work days, or 

188 days for new teachers and 185 days for all other teachers.

On March 17, 2010, the State of New Jersey notified the Board that State education funding to the district 

would be reduced by fifty-eight percent for the upcoming school year. Two days later, the Board asked the 

Association to re-open contract negotiations for the upcoming year; the Association denied that request on April 9, 

2010. Four days later, the Board again asked to re-open negotiations; the Association did not respond. In May 

2010, Robbinsville Township notified the Board that its local government financing also would be reduced for the 

upcoming school year. On May 12, 2010, the Board again asked the Association to re-open negotiations; the 

Association declined the invitation. The next day, the Board met to discuss the budget and decided to impose three 

days of involuntary, uncompensated furlough on the remaining teachers, which would reduce the work year from 

185 to 182 days.

The Association promptly filed an unfair practice charge with the Public Employment Relations 

Commission (PERC), alleging violations of both the Agreement and the New Jersey Employer-Employee Relations 

Act (EERA), N.J.S.A. 34:13A-1 to -43. PERC issued a complaint and notice of hearing to the parties, each of which 

filed cross-motions for summary judgment.

PERC granted summary judgment in favor of the Board, holding that the imposition of temporary 

furloughs was a non-negotiable managerial prerogative. The Association appealed, and the Appellate Division 

affirmed PERC’s judgment. The appellate panel relied on the Court’s holding in Keyport that “the decision to 

institute temporary layoffs implicates the same managerial prerogatives as permanent layoffs or subcontracting,” 

particularly “when economy is a factor.”

The Court granted the Association’s petition for certification. 223 N.J. 557 (2015).

HELD: 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. 
2

1. The scope of public employment negotiation is divided into two categories of subject matter: mandatorily 

negotiable subjects and non-negotiable matters of governmental policy. When an issue falls within a middle-ground 

area, a court must determine whether the issue should be resolved through the political process or through collective 

negotiations. The Court has adopted a three-part test to make that determination, holding that an issue involving 

public employment is properly negotiable when: “(1) the item intimately and directly affects the work and welfare 

of public employees; (2) the subject has not been fully or partially preempted by statute or regulation; and (3) a 

negotiated agreement would not significantly interfere with the determination of governmental policy.” In re Local 

195, IFPTE v. State, 88 N.J. 393, 404 (1982). (pp. 8-9)

2. Rates of pay and working hours are quintessential terms and conditions of employment and are mandatorily 

negotiable terms. Conversely, public employers have a non-negotiable managerial prerogative to reduce the 

workforce by permanently laying off employees. Those two areas—hours/wages and the right to reduce the 

workforce—came into conflict in the appeals from three separate PERC cases consolidated in Keyport. In two of 

those cases, municipalities had imposed mandatory but temporary layoffs by reducing the number of work days over 

a specific time period without prior negotiations; the third municipality had replaced three full-time positions with 

part-time positions. (pp. 9-11)

3. In Keyport, the Court noted that an emergency regulation had been promulgated in response to the 2008 

economic crisis. That regulation authorized certain municipalities to temporarily lay off employees when faced with 

exigent financial circumstances. When the Court applied the three-prong Local 195 test, it found the first prong 

plainly met because the temporary layoffs impacted work hours and compensation. It also found the second prong 

met, inasmuch as permission to effect temporary layoffs did not rise to the level of preemption. When balancing the 

interests of the employers and employees pursuant to the third prong, however, the Court found that the emergency 

regulation buttressed the municipalities’ right to implement the temporary layoffs. (pp. 11-13)

4. The Court notes that the Appellate Division erred in deriving from Keyport the general principle that financial 

considerations “are indisputably a legitimate basis for a layoff of any type.” Keyport, supra, 222 N.J. at 343-44. 

The appellate decision undervalued the lack here of an authorizing temporary emergency regulation that permitted 

temporary furloughs—a factor that had the significant impact of tilting the public policy calculus in Keyport’s 

analysis under the third prong of Local 195. Had the temporary regulation not provided that extra managerial 

authority, the fact patterns in the Keyport cases would have foundered on the third-prong analysis. (pp. 13-15)

5. Allowing a claimed need for management prerogative to prevail in tight budgetary times in order for municipal 

government policy to be properly determined would eviscerate the durability of collective negotiating agreements.

The Legislature and the Court have, time and again, emphasized the value of collective negotiated agreements in 

society. By reading Keyport to authorize the Board’s unilateral alteration of a collective negotiated agreement, the 

Appellate Division erroneously expanded Keyport, rendering it unrecognizable. The Court rejects that mistaken 

reading and unwarranted extension of Keyport. (pp. 15-17)

6. The Court declines to consider the Board’s argument that its actions were authorized under a section of the 

Agreement. First, PERC and the appellate panel rested their respective holdings on Keyport, not on the Agreement. 

Second, the Board did not file a cross-petition for certification to pursue this argument. Finally, it would not be 

appropriate for the Court to interpret the Agreement in light of the posture of the case; instead, the parties have their 

negotiated dispute resolution mechanism to resolve interpretive matters. (pp. 17-19)

The judgment of the Appellate Division is REVERSED. The matter is REMANDED for any further 

proceedings consistent with this opinion.

JUSTICES ALBIN, PATTERSON, FERNANDEZ-VINA, SOLOMON, and TIMPONE join in 

JUSTICE LaVECCHIA’s opinion. CHIEF JUSTICE RABNER did not participate. 
1

SUPREME COURT OF NEW JERSEY

A-32 September Term 2015

076497

IN THE MATTER OF 

ROBBINSVILLE TOWNSHIP BOARD 

OF EDUCATION,

Defendant-Respondent,

v.

WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP EDUCATION 

ASSOCIATION,

Plaintiff-Appellant.

Argued September 27, 2016 – Decided November 29, 2016

On certification to the Superior Court, 

Appellate Division.

Keith Waldman argued the cause for appellant 

(Selikoff & Cohen, attorneys; Mr. Waldman

and Kathleen L. Kirvan, on the briefs).

Matthew J. Giacobbe argued the cause for 

respondent Robbinsville Township Board of 

Education (Cleary, Giacobbe, Alfieri, 

Jacobs, attorneys; Robin T. McMahon, on the 

letter brief).

Don Horowitz, Acting General Counsel, argued 

the cause for respondent New Jersey Public 

Employment Relations Commission.

JUSTICE LaVECCHIA delivered the opinion of the Court.

In this appeal we consider the argument that our earlier 

determination in Borough of Keyport v. International Union of 

Operating Engineers, 222 N.J. 314 (2015), supports a general 
2

proposition that, in times of economic crisis, a school board 

may unilaterally impose furlough days on teaching staff members 

in contravention of the parties’ collective negotiation 

agreement governing terms and conditions of employment. 

Acting in response to significant funding reductions and 

citing managerial prerogative, the Robbinsville Township Board

of Education (Board) announced a decision to impose involuntary 

furlough days on teachers knowing that the furloughed days would

negatively impact the affected employees’ wages. An unfair 

labor practice charge was filed with the Public Employment 

Relations Commission (PERC), challenging the Board’s action as 

violating the parties’ collective negotiation agreement and the

New Jersey Employer-Employee Relations Act (EERA), N.J.S.A.

34:13A-1 to -43. 

In granting summary judgment to the Board, PERC relied on 

the Appellate Division’s decision in Keyport. The Washington 

Township Education Association (Association) appealed, and the 

Appellate Division affirmed PERC’s determination. The panel’s 

reasoning assumed that this Court’s modified affirmance in 

Keyport supported the Board’s ability to act unilaterally to 

impose the furloughed days. 

Because the Appellate Division decision is based on an 

overly broad and mistaken reading of our determination in 
3

Keyport, we reverse to correct the judgment and to prevent 

improper expansion of our circumscribed holding in Keyport.

I.

The Association is the major union representative for 

employees of the Board. Relevant to the events in this matter, 

the Board and the Association were bound by a collective 

negotiation agreement (Agreement) during the period of July 1, 

2008 through June 30, 2011. According to Article 5.3 of the 

Agreement, the teachers’ salaries were based on the number of 

school-year work days, which contract negotiations established 

to be 188 days for new teachers and 185 days for all other 

teachers. 

On March 17, 2010, during a time of declared “fiscal 

emergency,” the State of New Jersey notified the Board that 

State education funding to the district would be reduced by 

fifty-eight percent for the upcoming 2010-2011 school year. 

Reeling from that significant funding reduction, the Board took 

action: it revised its budget for the next school year by 

cutting educational programs, freezing salaries, and laying off 

approximately thirteen teaching and staff positions. Because 

those attempts were insufficient to balance the school 

district’s budget, on March 19, 2010, the Board asked the 

Association to re-open contract negotiations for the 2010-2011 

school year. On April 9, 2010, the Association, citing its 
4

members’ best interests, declined to re-open discussions midcontract. The Association also did not respond to the Board’s

subsequent request on April 13 to reconsider re-opening 

negotiations.

In May 2010, Robbinsville Township notified the Board that 

local government financial support to the school district also 

would be reduced for the upcoming school year. On May 12, 2010, 

the Board again asked the Association to re-open contract 

discussion for purposes of the 2010-2011 school year and again 

the Association declined the invitation. The next day, the 

Board met to approve methods by which it could reduce the budget 

shortfall, which included, among other things, imposing three 

days of involuntary, uncompensated furlough on the remaining

teachers. The furlough days were scheduled to take place on 

non-educational, professional development days, reducing the 

overall work year from 185 days to 182 days. The Board informed 

the faculty of its decision via e-mail later that day.

The Association promptly filed an unfair practice charge 

with PERC, asserting that the Board violated the EERA, as well 

as the Agreement, by unilaterally and without negotiation 

reducing the teachers’ workdays, negatively impacting their 

salaries.1 PERC issued a complaint and a notice of hearing to 

 

1 Before PERC and the Appellate Division, the Association also 

challenged the Board’s e-mail communication as contravening the 
5

the parties, each of which filed cross-motions for summary 

judgment. While PERC’s decision was pending, the Appellate 

Division issued an unpublished opinion in the consolidated 

appeals in Borough of Keyport v. International Union of 

Operating Engineers, which addressed the negotiability of 

temporary furloughs imposed in the affected civil service 

jurisdictions. Thereafter, on November 21, 2013, PERC rendered 

its decision in the instant matter, granting the Board’s motion 

for summary judgment and denying the Association’s motion, 

holding that the decision to impose temporary furloughs in the 

current economic climate was a non-negotiable managerial 

prerogative. 

The Association appealed PERC’s decision to the Appellate 

Division, and the panel affirmed, stating that it relied on this 

Court’s holding in Keyport that “the decision to institute 

temporary layoffs implicates the same managerial prerogatives as 

permanent layoffs or subcontracting,” particularly “when economy 

is a factor.” 

The Association’s petition for certification to this Court 

was granted on December 8, 2015. 223 N.J. 557 (2015).

II.

 

EERA; however, that issue is not included in the appeal to this 

Court. 
6

The Association argues that PERC and the Appellate Division 

erroneously applied Keyport in this case. The Association 

contends that Keyport’s judgment, upholding decisions to 

temporarily lay off public employees as a non-negotiable 

managerial prerogative, was based not only on the existence of

harsh economic circumstances but also on regulatory authority to 

impose temporary furloughs that was applicable only to civil 

service jurisdictions. The Association notes that the actions 

of the Keyport employers were authorized by a then-existing 

Civil Service Commission emergency regulation permitting 

temporary layoffs due to the economic climate, and it emphasizes 

this Court’s reliance on that emergency regulation in upholding 

the Keyport employers’ right to unilaterally impose the 

furloughs. See Keyport, supra, 222 N.J. at 343 (referencing 

“[the] clear expression of legitimate public policy authorizing”

managerial prerogative to impose contested furloughs). The 

Association notes that, conversely, no such expression of public 

policy exists here. The Association maintains that it asks too 

much of this Court’s reasoning in Keyport to extend that limited 

holding to public employers throughout the state.

The Association additionally relies on the fact that the 

Keyport municipalities’ layoff plans had been subjected to 

independent review and approval by the Civil Service Commission, 

and no similar independent third party exercised oversight over 
7

the Board’s actions. And, for the first time in this appeal, 

the Association adds that, at the very least, the Board should 

have been required to negotiate the impact of its unilateral 

decision because the furloughs would adversely impact employee 

compensation and negotiating would not have substantially 

interfered with the Board’s managerial prerogative. 

The Board argues that this case aligns with Keyport, which, 

it contends, did not turn on the Civil Service Act or the 

temporary emergency regulation but rather on “the 

municipalities’ ‘right to lay off employees under prior case 

law.’” (Quoting Keyport, supra, 222 N.J. at 344-45). Moreover, 

the Board asserts that requiring negotiation before imposing 

temporary furloughs would require the Board to “leav[e] 

significant matters of government policy to collective 

negotiations . . . rather than governmental bodies.” Last, the 

Board argues that this Court should not consider the 

Association’s argument regarding negotiating the furloughs’

impact because that argument was not raised before PERC or the 

Appellate Division and because the Association waived the 

opportunity to negotiate impact by thrice declining to meet with 

the Board when asked to re-open negotiations. 

Participating pursuant to Rule 2:6-4, the quasi-judicial 

decision-maker, PERC, contended in briefs filed with this Court

and the Appellate Division that it properly decided this case 
8

because it is required to “follow and apply pertinent judicial 

precedent,” like the Appellate Division’s decision in Keyport.

PERC further argued that civil service regulations and the 

emergency regulation identified in this Court’s decision in 

Keyport do not provide a “basis to distinguish between civil 

service municipalities and other public employers.” 

III.

This Court reaffirmed and applied in Keyport certain 

bedrock principles governing the scope of collective 

negotiations in the public sector. 

Fundamentally, the scope of public employment negotiation 

is divided, for purposes of analysis, into two categories of 

subject matter comprised of mandatorily negotiable subjects and 

non-negotiable matters of governmental policy. Keyport, supra, 

222 N.J. at 333 (citations omitted). Often those categories are 

readily distinguished. However, in recognition that courts must 

wade in when conflicts arise over the competing interests of 

public employers and public employees in middle-ground areas, 

this Court decades ago dictated the approach to be employed when 

a court must determine “whether an issue is appropriately 

decided by the political process or by collective negotiations.” 

Id. at 333–34. 

The now time-honored test for such situations was announced 

in the 1982 decision of In re Local 195, IFPTE v. State, 88 N.J.
9

393 (1982). The Court stated that a subject involving public 

employment is properly negotiable when it satisfies a three-part 

test: “(1) the item intimately and directly affects the work 

and welfare of public employees; (2) the subject has not been 

fully or partially preempted by statute or regulation; and (3) a 

negotiated agreement would not significantly interfere with the 

determination of governmental policy.” Local 195, supra, 88 

N.J. at 404. As to the third prong of that test, a reviewing 

court must “balance the interests of the public employees and 

the public employer,” id. at 404-05, and will hold that 

negotiation is permitted “on a subject that intimately and 

directly affects the work and welfare of public employees unless 

such negotiated agreement would significantly interfere with the 

determination of governmental policy,” id. at 404. 

The “prime examples” of mandatorily negotiable terms and 

conditions of employment under New Jersey case law “are rates of 

pay and working hours.” Id. at 403. In recognition of the 

preeminence of pay and working hours as quintessential terms and 

conditions of employment, New Jersey decisions hold that 

“[a]lthough the establishment of a school calendar is a 

managerial prerogative, a decision that directly impacts the 

days worked and compensation for those days implicates a term

and condition of employment,” rendering the decision one that 

involves “a mandatorily-negotiable term of employment.” Troy v. 
10

Rutgers, 168 N.J. 354, 384 (2001); see also Bd. of Educ. v. 

Woodstown-Pilesgrove Reg’l Educ. Ass’n, 81 N.J. 582, 594 (1980) 

(finding no encroachment on management prerogative by requiring 

school board to negotiate lengthening school-day hours despite 

school district’s “budgetary consideration being the dominant 

element” in that decision); Piscataway Twp. Bd. of Educ. v. 

Piscataway Twp. Principals Ass’n, 164 N.J. Super. 98, 100 (App. 

Div. 1978) (“We have no doubt that the matter of length of the 

work year and its inseparable concomitant -- compensation -- are 

terms and conditions of employment, . . . and consequently the 

subject of mandatory negotiation before being put into effect by 

the public employer.”). 

Conversely, there is no dispute, either in law or in the 

positions taken by the parties in this action, that public 

employers have a non-negotiable managerial prerogative to reduce 

the workforce by permanently laying off employees. See N.J.S.A.

18A:28-9 (providing right of “board of education to reduce the 

number of teaching staff members . . . whenever, in the judgment 

of the board, it is advisable to abolish any such positions for 

reasons of economy”); State v. State Supervisory Emps. Ass’n, 78 

N.J. 54, 88 (1978) (noting that “a decision to cut the work 

force to a certain number unquestionably is a predominantly 

managerial function”).
11

Those two areas –- hours/wages and the right to reduce the 

workforce -- came into conflict in the appeals involved in 

Keyport. In Keyport, supra, we recognized, again, that work 

days and compensation are terms and conditions of employment, 

mandating negotiations. 222 N.J. at 340. We concluded,

however, in that unique matter, that a public employer could

unilaterally alter employees’ rates of pay and work days “in 

accordance with a duly authorized temporary layoff plan” during 

a time of acute economic crisis. Id. at 343. 

Keyport arose from three separate PERC cases, all of which 

addressed the actions of civil service municipalities. Id. at 

319. Two municipalities involved in that appeal imposed 

“mandatory, but temporary, layoffs, in the form of a reduced 

number of work days over a specified period of time” without 

prior negotiations, and the third replaced “three full-time 

clerical positions . . . with part-time positions,” eliminating 

the affected employees’ health benefits. Ibid. Importantly, 

“all three layoff plans had been submitted and approved by the 

Civil Service Commission . . . as compliant with all civil 

service requirements for a layoff action.” Ibid. In addressing 

the three cases, this Court noted that, due to the 2008 economic 

crisis, an emergency regulation was promulgated that temporarily 

authorized “[m]unicipalities governed by the civil service 
12

system . . . to [temporarily] lay off employees when facing 

exigent financial circumstances.” Id. at 320. 

Our analytic approach to the three matters in Keyport

resorted to the well-established, three-prong analysis from 

Local 195 to determine the negotiability of the temporary 

furloughs. We found the first factor plainly satisfied because 

the temporary layoffs impacted the employees’ work hours and 

compensation, “intimately and directly affect[ing] the work and 

welfare” of the employees. Id. at 334, 336 (quoting Local 195, 

supra, 88 N.J. at 404). Next, we determined that the regulation 

at issue did not preempt the EERA’s mandate to negotiate rates 

of pay and hours of work: the regulation merely permitted 

temporary layoffs, whereas preemption requires a statute or 

regulation that leaves “no room for debate on the matter of 

discretion” and “fixes a term and condition of employment 

expressly, specifically and comprehensively.” Id. at 337 

(quotation marks and citation omitted). In that respect, our 

decision reversed a contrary determination by the Appellate 

Division in Keyport that had found preemption applicable. Id.

at 340-41.

Instead, in our analysis, the critical question turned on 

the third prong, which required a balancing of the public 

employer’s interest in “the determination of governmental 

policy” and the employees’ interest in “the[ir] work and 
13

welfare.” Id. at 341 (quoting Local 195, supra, 88 N.J. at 

404). We recognized the “emergency regulation authorizing 

temporary layoffs [due to] the extant financially distressing 

conditions” to be a “clear expression of legitimate public 

policy authorizing such actions to be taken.” Id. at 343. 

Although the municipalities did not specifically rely on the 

regulation, for this Court it was important that the 

municipalities acted while the emergency regulation was in 

effect and the municipalities did face financial crisis. Those 

circumstances specifically and directly prompted Keyport’s 

holding: “These civil service municipalities, when faced with 

fiscal exigency, had the right to lay off employees under prior 

case law and as buttressed by the emergency regulation then in 

effect authorizing temporary layoff actions.” Id. at 344-45

(emphasis added).

IV.

In the matter under review, the Appellate Division also 

employed the Local 195 three-prong test and concluded that, 

despite the fact that the terms and conditions at issue were 

prime examples of negotiable employment terms, negotiation was 

not necessary because it would “impinge on the determination of 

public policy.” (Citing Keyport, supra, 222 N.J. at 341).

Although the Appellate Division correctly determined that 

the first and second prongs of Local 195 are not at issue in 
14

this case -- because the action here, in impacting work hours 

and pay, directly affects the employees’ work and welfare and 

because there is no statute or regulation preempting the EERA --

the panel misapplied our holding in Keyport when analyzing the 

third prong of the test. Concerning that third prong, the 

Appellate Division concluded that the economic crisis present in 

the Robbinsville school district permitted the Board to forego 

negotiations on the furloughs. The panel stated that it reached 

that determination because the Board was attempting to “achieve

a balance between the interests of public employees and the need 

to maintain and provide reasonable services,” and because, 

pursuant to Keyport, “economic considerations ‘are indisputably 

a legitimate basis for a layoff of any type.’” (Quoting

Keyport, supra, 222 N.J. at 343-44).

The appellate decision undervalued the lack here of an 

authorizing temporary emergency regulation that permitted 

temporary furloughs -– a factor that had the significant impact 

of tilting the public policy calculus in Keyport’s analysis 

under the third prong of Local 195. 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 
15

temporary emergency regulation to provide local governmental 

managers with enhanced prerogatives in handling the 

extraordinary fiscal times faced in the late 2000s. The 

regulation’s existence made all the difference in Keyport. It 

was mentioned by the Court repeatedly throughout the opinion. 

See Keyport, supra, 222 N.J. at 343, 344, 345. 

This Court determined that the emergency regulation 

promulgated by the governmental agency overseeing layoff 

activity in civil service jurisdictions purposefully added to 

the managerial discretion reposed in the municipalities and, 

further, that it added weight to the Court’s conclusion that

forcing the civil service municipalities involved in Keyport to

abide by their respective “negotiated agreement[s] would

significantly interfere with the determination of governmental 

policy.” Id. at 341 (emphasis added) (quoting Local 195, supra, 

88 N.J. at 404). That was underscored by the Court’s 

recognition of the regulation’s importance to the prong-three 

analysis under Local 195 regardless of whether the regulation 

was the express impetus for the municipalities’ decisions. 

Keyport, supra, 222 N.J. at 345.

Had the temporary regulation not provided that extra 

managerial authority, the fact patterns in the three 

consolidated cases in Keyport would have foundered on the thirdprong analysis. Allowing a claimed need for management 
16

prerogative to prevail in tight budgetary times in order for 

municipal governmental policy to be properly determined would 

eviscerate the durability of collective negotiated agreements. 

Collective negotiated agreements -- promises on wages, rates of 

pay, and hours, and other traditional terms and conditions of 

employment -- would mean nothing in the wake of any financial 

setback faced by a local governmental entity. That drastic 

public-policy course alteration was not explicit or implicit in 

the opinion setting forth the reasoning to support our holding 

in Keyport. We do not endorse it now for to do so would 

undermine Local 195 and decades of public sector labor law on 

collective negotiations.

To that end, the Legislature and this Court have, time and 

again, emphasized the value of collective negotiated agreements 

in our society. The Legislature enacted the EERA to serve the 

interests of New Jersey citizens by preventing labor disputes 

through such agreements. N.J.S.A. 34:13A-2; see also N.J.S.A.

34:13A-5.3 (requiring representatives of employers and employees 

to “meet at reasonable times and negotiate in good faith with 

respect to . . . terms and conditions of employment,” and 

requiring that such agreements be written and signed). This 

Court also has recognized the “wisdom of pursuing discussion 

between public employers and employees,” which “promote[s] labor 

peace and harmony.” Local 195, supra, 88 N.J. at 409; see also
17

Teaneck Bd. of Educ. v. Teaneck Teachers Ass’n, 94 N.J. 9, 18-19 

(1983). And, the Court has encouraged negotiations, stating

that “[s]tate officials would be derelict in their public 

responsibilities” if they failed to negotiate. Local 195,

supra, 88 N.J. at 409.2 Thus, by reading Keyport to authorize 

the Board’s unilateral alteration of a collective negotiated 

agreement, the Appellate Division erroneously expanded Keyport, 

rendering it unrecognizable. We reject that mistaken reading 

and unwarranted extension of Keyport. Keyport does not support 

the award of summary judgment to the Board.

V.

For completeness, we note that in oral argument before this 

Court the Board contended, as an alternative ground for 

affirmance, that although the Board does not have the benefit of 

a temporary regulation or other governmental authorization for 

its unilateral imposition of temporary furloughs on school 

district faculty and staff, the Board’s action was authorized by 

Article 4.1 of the Agreement.3 Among other things, that article 

provides the Board with the power “to determine the methods, 

 

2 We likewise recognize that public employees disregard their 

duties if they do not engage in negotiations fairly and in good 

faith. Here, the Association thrice declined to engage in

negotiations, despite awareness of the Board’s dire financial 

circumstances and limited options.

3 We note that the Board did not reference the article in its 

answer to the unfair labor practice charge.
18

means and personnel by which whatever actions might be necessary 

to carry out the mission of the school district in situations of 

emergency.” Accordingly, the Board argues that the Agreement 

enables this case to fall within the exception to mandatory 

negotiability carved out by Keyport.

We do not consider that alternative argument for a number 

of reasons. 

First, the decisions of PERC and, on appeal, the Appellate 

Division do not support the argument that the Agreement’s 

language had an impact on their respective holdings. Each 

holding rested on its interpretation of Keyport.

Second, the Board did not file a cross-petition for 

certification in which it could, potentially, have raised an 

alternative basis for affirming the judgment of the Appellate 

Division. 

Finally, we do not consider in this appeal whether Article 

4.1 provides the clarity of authority equivalent to the previous

civil service emergency regulation that plainly authorized

temporary furloughs as a legitimate layoff action. See Keyport, 

supra, 222 N.J. at 338. The Board’s assertion implicates a 

question of contract interpretation affecting the determination 

of contract rights. The parties have their negotiated dispute 

resolution mechanism available to invoke in order to resolve 

such interpretative matters. In the posture in which this 
19

argument has arisen, it would not be appropriate for this Court

to become involved in contract interpretation.

Thus, for the reasons previously explained, our decision in 

Keyport was misapplied in this matter. Keyport does not provide 

the Board with the authority to have unilaterally imposed unpaid 

furlough days on teaching staff members in the 2010-2011 school 

year.

VI.

The judgment of the Appellate Division is reversed and the 

matter is remanded for any further proceedings consistent with 

this opinion.

JUSTICES ALBIN, PATTERSON, FERNANDEZ-VINA, SOLOMON, and 

TIMPONE join in JUSTICE LaVECCHIA’s opinion. CHIEF JUSTICE RABNER

did not participate.