The Christie administration said Monday that no new contracts with school superintendents will be approved until a comprehensive review of all superintendent pay deals is complete.

The governor has proposed salary caps according to the size of each district, with some as low as $125,000.

The acting education commissioner, Rochelle Hendricks, ordered county executive superintendents to scrutinize the deals and report to her by Dec. 3. Her memo, dated Monday, also underscored her phone call last week instructing them to deny any effort to extend contracts now to skirt the proposed salary caps, which are expected to take effect Feb. 7.

The order was triggered by news last week that LeRoy Seitz, the superintendent in Parsippany-Troy Hills, was awarded a new contract far exceeding the governor’s proposed salary cap. The cap would prevent almost all superintendents from taking home base pay topping Christie’s $175,000 salary once their current contracts expire.

Christie blasted Seitz last week as the “new poster boy for all that is wrong with the public school system that’s being dictated by greed.” Appearing at a town hall meting in Gloucester County on Monday, Christie said the Morris County executive superintendent was nixing the deal. The announcement got cheers from an audience whose members live about 100 miles from Parsippany.

Seitz had renegotiated a contract even though his current deal wasn’t due to expire until next summer. He currently makes $212,000, and would get 2 percent raises each year of the new five-year contract.

The school board approved the package last week after Christie publicly criticized it. On Monday, Christie’s office also released a letter dated Nov. 15 from the Morris executive superintendent saying she never approved the Seitz deal, contrary to prior news reports. She couldn’t be reached for comment. Neither could Seitz.

The governor has proposed salary caps according to the size of each district — some as low as $125,000 — to rein in some of the highest property taxes in the nation. Many school chiefs in Bergen and Passaic counties currently make far more than the caps would allow. Critics of the caps argue they will lead to an exodus of talent to other states that pay more, and will discourage administrators from seeking promotions.

Seitz was not the only superintendent seeking to nail down a better deal before the cap became effective. Viktor Joganow, the Passaic Valley Regional High School District superintendent, said Monday he asked a month ago to extend his 2008 contract to 2015, rather than 2013. It pays him $216,000, plus raises, to run the single-school district. The school board president said Friday that the board was still reviewing the request.

Joganow, 61, said that if the extension was not allowed he would step down in 2013. He said he was more concerned about the bitterness of the debate than his circumstances.

“I’m more upset about the whole tenor that’s been established and the negative connotations towards teachers and administrators,” he said. “It’s unfortunate our profession has come under such undue criticism.”

Some communities are worried about recruiting leaders. The school board in Englewood voted this month to hire a new superintendent, Donald Carlisle, for $200,000. His contract is under review by the state-appointed county executive superintendent, Aaron Graham, who did not return calls for comment. That salary represents a $50,000 pay cut from Carlisle’s current job in Westchester County, N.Y. (School boards can vote on offers to candidates, but county executive superintendents must sign off on contracts before they get final board approval.)

Henry Pruitt III, vice president of the Englewood school board, said his district faced serious academic challenges and needed an “experienced change agent.” He said the cost of living in North Jersey and a district’s particular problems should be taken in to account.

“By putting in caps you’re crippling our district’s ability to attract an experienced candidate,” Pruitt said. “I applaud the governor’s effort to control costs but I think focusing on superintendents’ salaries strictly by district population is not the right way to do it.”

Robert Gilmartin, executive county superintendent in Passaic County, said Monday he was reviewing a proposed contract for an incoming superintendent that exceeds the cap by about $15,000, but declined to name the district. He said the governor’s proposed caps were reasonable but such salary constraints should be put on lower positions too or it would be more lucrative to avoid the superintendent’s seat.

“If you take the incentive away from working up the ladder, that will be a problem,” he said.

The school board in Ringwood was expected to vote on a contract Monday night that would pay a new superintendent $9,000 more than the cap for a district of its small size, with only 1,295 students. If given final approval, the new contract for Hugh Beattie, currently a principal at Jefferson School in Bergenfield, would provide an annual salary of $154,000.

Ringwood Interim Superintendent Rudolph Sellitti said the amount was fair based on the Beattie’s current salary and earnings potential as principal. It was unclear Monday whether Ringwood would be affected by the commissioner’s new directive because the board resolution showed the county executive superintendent already approved the contract in October.

“Right now, the board still has the right to negotiate a reasonable salary,” Sellitti said.

Hendricks’ order not to let anyone circumvent the cap came too late for many districts. Mike Osnato of Leadership Advantage, which recruits superintendents, said many negotiated new contracts last spring and early summer before Christie announced his salary-cap proposal in July.

“There was a lot of talk about salary caps coming and most people realized that raises in the future were going to be much less,” Osnato said. Those bids for higher pay came as many administrators around the state took pay freezes to curb costs for taxpayers.

Some recruiters have warned it will be difficult for New Jersey districts to compete for talent when New York pays more. Osnato said Ardsley, Briarcliff and Hastings, for example were looking for superintendents and planned to pay in the $250,000 range. Still, he said, educators in southern or western New Jersey, where pay is lower than North Jersey, may find it attractive to hop to Bergen and Passaic counties.

A majority of New Jersey voters oppose Gov. Chris Christie’s hefty state aid cuts and his plan to link teacher pay to student test scores, according to a Rutgers-Eagleton poll released today.

Fifty-nine percent of registered voters said the state is underfunding education and 63 percent oppose merit pay, one of the key education reform proposals Christie unveiled at a town hall meeting in late September.

A large majority — 70 percent — of those surveyed do, however, support the governor’s intentions to overhaul teacher tenure, responding that tenure impedes the removal of bad teachers.

“New Jerseyans generally support their schools and want to see them better funded, even while they want the state to cut back on funding in other areas,” said David Redlawsk, director of the Rutgers-Eagleton Poll and a Rutgers University political science professor. “While they question tenure, they do not necessarily support the governor’s plans or his spending cuts.”

The governor’s office could not be reached for comment on the poll.

In March, Christie announced he would cut $820 million from this year’s budget for education. Instead of distributing the cut as a percentage of district’s state aid, Christie aligned his cut to a district’s overall operating budget, a decision that left some wealthy, suburban districts with no education funding from Trenton.

When asked to describe the state’s most pressing education woes in their own words, 20 percent of respondents pointed to budget issues, while 15 percent cited teacher-related issues. Only 8 percent of those surveyed said the New Jersey Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, is the state’s most important problem, in spite of the governor’s oft-stated belief that the union is a major roadblock to true education reform.

The poll’s results come from a sampling of 885 registered voters interviewed statewide between Oct. 21 and Oct. 27.

TOMS RIVER  — Governor Christie says he’s skeptical that humans are responsible for global warming.

AP FILE PHOTO

Christie made the remark at a town hall meeting in Toms River.

The governor, a new darling of the Republican Party, made the remark at a town hall meeting he hosted in Toms River Tuesday afternoon.

Asked by a man attending the event whether he thought mankind was responsible for global warming, Christie says he’s seen evidence on both sides of the argument but thinks it hasn’t been proven one way or another.

Christie says “more science” is needed to convince him.

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Governor Christie has slammed the door on speculation that he’s a presidential contender for 2012, but appearing on national television this morning he left the door cracked open for a run four years later.

Appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday, Christie said he would first have to decide whether he will run for reelection as governor in 2013 before weighing any other political aspirations.

“And that’s going to be determined by how good a job I do and whether the people of the state of New Jersey want me back,” he said.

Last week, Christie said nothing “short of suicide” would convince people that he will not run for president in 2012.

But host David Gregory asked if it’s fair to say the door was open after his first term as governor is up in 2013.

“I’m going to need a job, David, after 2013, you know? And so whether it’s going to be being governor of New Jersey or doing something else, I have four kids between 7 and 17.  I’m working the rest of my life anyway,” said Christie. “So it’s going to be doing something, David. So maybe it will be that. Who knows?”

Christie recently finished a 15-state, 20,000 mile tour on behalf of Republican gubernatorial and congressional candidates, using the hard-charging style that made him a YouTube celebrity to help raise about $8 million for them.

Gregory said he was acting “like a guy who’s increasing your national influence.” Christie denied any ulterior motives.

“Because I care about my country and felt like those people were the absolute best candidates to make my country a better place,” he said. “That’s why I campaigned for them. I have no other agenda.”

Christie, who has kept the tea party at arm’s length, said the movement had “a positive influence” on last week’s elections because its members’ ideology revolves around less spending and smaller government.

But Christie lamented what could have been a Republican pick up in the Delaware U.S. senate race.  In the primary, Christie had endorsed U.S. Rep. Mike Castle (R-De.), who was heavily favored to win the general election. But Castle lost the primary to tea party-backed Christine O’Donnell, who went on to lose the general election to Democrat Chris Coons.

“I think Delaware was a missed opportunity to have a really good senator in Mike Castle,” he said.