Assembly Minority Leader Alex DeCroce simultaneously played the roles of Scrooge and Santa Claus this week.
With his inartful comments about people receiving unemployment benefits, and his equally ignoble apology wherein he tried to deflect the attention to the dual office holding of the Legislature’s Democratic leadership and accused Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver of playing the race card in her criticism of his remarks, DeCroce appeared as Scrooge to “these people” on the unemployment dole and Santa to the Trenton Democrats, Supreme Court Justice Rivera-Soto and the NJEA.
While the Legislature should be focused on reforming civil service and COAH before the 2 % property tax increase cap takes effect on January 1, the leadership was engaged in what Governor Christie called a “food fight” over DeCroce’s gaffes.
Rather than drawing attention to dual office holding and Oliver’s willingness to play the race card, DeCroce deflected media attention away from the controversy over Rivera-Soto’s unwillingness to participate in State Supreme Court decisions so long as a temporary justice is sitting on the court. The NJEA was really let off the hook by DeCroce’s remarks as the main stream media apparently completely missed the explosive videosreleased by citizen journalist James O’Keefe that expose union leaders promising to protect teachers who engage in sexual behavior with students.
The gift that DeCroce gave the Democrats may well keep giving throughout 2011 when the entire legislature will be on the November ballot.
If the Legislative Redistricting Commission draws an equitable map New Jersey should have the first competitive legislative elections in 12 years. For most of the last decade New Jersey cast more Republican votes than Democratic votes for legislators, yet Democrats have dominated the Senate and the Assembly due to gerrymandering of the districts. A new district map is due this coming winter.
If the coming election appears to be competitive and if DeCroce is effectively running for Assembly Speaker, count on the New Jersey Democratic machine running against DeCroce in much the same way the GOP ran against Nancy Pelosi in the recent national election.
Assembly Minority Leader Alex DeCroce raised an important issue this week—the insolvency of the Unemployment Trust Fund which is in debt to the federal government for almost $2 billion–and then promptly torpedoed his message with a poor choice of words when he called those collecting “those people.”
Now the story in the media has become DeCroce’s insensitivity, his apology, the six figures he and his wife are collecting from their state jobs and their pensions. My friend Bob Ingle points out that DeCroce is taking the heat from his Democratic colleagues by attempting to change the subject to dual office holding.
My experience as beneficiary of unemployment insurance is very limited. In the late 80’s, the last time the economy was this bad, I lost a high paying job “through no fault of my own.” I went to the unemployment office, was interviewed and filled out forms. This was my first, and only to date, experience seeking any government assistance. I didn’t like it. Fortunately I was young and single with responsibilities for no one but myself.
Rather than take the handout, even though I had paid into it, I downsized my lifestyle by moving into a smaller apartment and took a low paying job that I was over qualified for.
I didn’t consider that a major decision at the time, but in retrospect it was a pivotal decision in my life. I never went back to “the corporate world.” I was happy and thriving in the “small business world.” It took a long time to get my income back to the level I enjoyed in “the corporate world.” When I realized I was tapped out and wasn’t so happy any longer working at the small business I was employed by I found that I couldn’t go back to the corporate world. I was a “stray cat.” Even if I could have gotten such a job, I would have hated it. So I started my own small business.
As an employer I became acquainted with the unemployment fund again. I was paying into it. For the first 8-10 years of I didn’t even notice it. Business was great and growing. I was hiring, rarely firing. Contributions to the unemployment fund were an insignificant portion of my quarterly payments to the State.
Toward the end of the boom, my most valuable employee informed me she was pregnant. The news was not as life changing to me as it was to her, yet it was a significant and unexpected development. She had not had a child in 20 years and was not planning another. I relied heavily on her. She knew the administrative aspects of my business better than I did. I didn’t know them at all! This major personal development in my trusted employee’s life exposed a major weakness in my business that would require an expensive adjustment.
Assuming the economy would continue to boom and that business would continue to thrive, my plan was for my most valuable employee to spend her pregnancy training her replacement while herself training for the new job that I invented for her to come back to after her pregnancy leave. It was an expensive plan, but it worked. The administrative aspects of my business became documented with a manual that my new hire referred to often as she mastered her job. My long term employee spent months answering questions, documenting answers and taking business courses from Brookdale online, preparing for her return.
Given that I was expecting her back, and given that business remained strong, I carried the cost of my long term employee’s health care during her pregnancy leave. It was a good thing I did, as there were major complications, the baby (who is now a brilliant and delightful 4 year old who is terribly disruptive when she comes to visit the business) needed surgery and a long quarantine period. The maternity costs and the baby’s early care cost almost $400,000. The care they received probably wouldn’t have been as good and the taxpayers would have picked up the tab had I not carried the heath care premiums.
But the downside for me was that a 3 month maternity leave turned into an 8 month maternity leave. When my employee came back to work, she said she could only handle part time. The truth was she probably wasn’t ready to work, but the pregnancy disability benefits had run out.
After a couple of months on part time, I told my employee I needed her full time. She quit. This gets me back to the Unemployment Trust Fund and its management.
Unbelievably to me, and over my objections, she was granted unemployment benefits. Why did I object? Because I had offered her a full time job, the offer was still on the table, but the folks managing the Unemployment Trust Fund gave her benefits instead.
A quarter, two or three later I noticed that my payment to the State had increased substantially. Figuring it was a mistake, I asked my bookkeeper for an explanation. No mistake, my unemployment insurance premiums had skyrocketed due to claims history. A large portion of the cost was the premium on my own salary. As the owner of a corporation I couldn’t collect on “insurance” I was paying for. This would be illegal in the private market.
Now, a few years later with an even higher claims history, my contribution to the Unemployment Trust Fund is 3-4 X higher than the quarterly payroll taxes I pay to the State, though the actual number is a great deal lower. This cost is a major impediment to me hiring new employees, as it is for hundreds, if not thousands of other small business owners.
There are legal and illegal ways around having to pay high unemployment premiums. The legal way, starting a new company with no history to pay employees is probably the option I’ll follow, if I decide to grow the business again. Employee leasing is also an option. Both options are unproductive and costly, but probably not as costly as paying 5+% of payroll into the insolvent Unemployment Trust Fund. Closing the existing corporation is not an easy option for me, and many other businesses, as the existing corporation owns assets that could not be transferred without costly legal, accounting and tax consequences. Small businesses owners are confronted with a choice of having to create complicated and costly corporate structures in order to grow, not to grow, or to cheat. Many will choose to cheat, which is an impediment to growth in the long run, and costly to the State treasury in the short and long run.
Cheating is a major issue on the beneficiary side of the unemployment equation that no one wants to talk about. There is no accountability for those receiving unemployment benefits. There may be no way of knowing how many people are gaming the system, working “off the books” while collecting. We all know it is happening.
As indelicate as DeCroce’s words were, he point was accurate. We need to give the unemployed more incentives to make the difficult but inevitable lifestyle choice decisions and find ways to survive economically either by accepting jobs they once never would have considered or starting businesses. We also need to remove the disincentives from businesses who want to employ people but won’t because the risks are too high for the potential returns.
Most importantly and not yet addressed in a major way, we need to bring management and accountability to the administration of the Unemployment Trust Fund.
Declaring that it was not a partisan issue but an individual decision, Highlands Mayor Anna Little again joined the two Democrats on Highlands Council in approving a amendment to the Highlands PBA contract, over the objections of her Republican successor, Council President Frank Nolan, and her Republican predecessor, Councilman Rick O’Neil.
In introducing the resolution to the public, Little distributed the statement she posted on her facebook page over the weekend.
Little said that the new agreement would result in a saving of $500,000 to Highlands taxpayers vs. a net savings of $34,000 had the resolution failed, which would have resulted in layoffs of three police officer. During her remarks, Little admitted the numbers in her statement were her “beliefs” and the result of assumptions regarding police overtime of $18,000 per month provided by the Police Chief. She admitted that her numbers had not been certified by the Chief Financial Officer.
Little addressed the penalties in the new agreement only after Nolan brought them up. Nolan asserted that Little’s calculations were off by at least $300,000, which she disputed. Nolan argued that the council should not accept the penalities knowing that there will very likely layoffs necessary that will trigger the penalites. At that point Little scolded Nolan for speaking out of turn regarding Executive Session matters that council had not agreed to make public.
Will Anna Little End Her Term As Highlands Mayor As A Christie Republican or As A Corzine Democrat?
Dramitization. Neither Anna Little nor Jon Corzine really look like this.
By Art Gallagher
Tonight in Highlands we find out if Anna Little has come to her senses or if she really has forsaken any future in the Republican Party.
In case you missed it, on December 1 Little inexplicably returned to Highlands from the campaign trail for the 2012 congressional race to join her Democratic colleagues on the governing body in approving a hastily drawn labor agreement with the Highlands PBA that undermines the plans of her Republican successor as Mayor, Council President Frank Nolan.
Her actions have lead many of her recent supporters, including yours truly, to question who Little really is. Others have been saying, “I told you so.”
Is Little the “Christie Republican” she campaigned for Congress as, or is she a political opportunist “Corzine Democrat?” Did she vote with the Democrats on December 1 to give herself some time to study the agreement before making her final decision with the vote that will occur tonight? Will she make the tough, yet potentially unpopular choice to reduce the size of government and save taxpayers money, ala Governor Christie, or will she hamstring her successor like Corzine did to Christie in 2009 when he made a hasty deal with the state workers union out of political expediency.
Early indications are that Little has left us for the leftists. Late Sunday night, apparently in response to my post this weekend, Will The Real Anna Little Please Stand Up, the Mayor posted a grossly inaccurate and incomplete justification of her support for the PBA deal on her facebook page. “Fuzzy math on facebook,” is how one former supporter described it.
1) The penalties included in the agreement, payable by Highlands taxpayers to members of the Highlands PBA, that could run anywhere from $60,000, to $150,000 should layoffs become necessary in the next 18 months.
2) Little knows that Nolan has started conversations with Middletown about a shared services agreement for police that could potentially save Highlands taxpayers high six figures or more, and return Highlands to solvency, for many years to come. This new deal complicates a potential shared services agreement and reduces the savings should it occur.
Democratic Councilman Chris Francy, who promised regionalization in his unsuccessful campaign for Mayor last November, said “Its only $60,000,” when asked to justify his vote for the agreement on December 1st when he knows about the potential shared services deal coming in 2011. Maybe Little is thinking the same way.
In this video, NJEA and AFT leaders throughout New Jersey first bash Governor Christie, which is nothing new.
As the video progresses, the “star” of the video, a male voice with a real or faked British accent posing as a teacher, confesses to “kiddy fiddling” and sexual touching of students to union officials who say they’ve dealt with such circumstances before and that they will back him up. One union official advises the fake teacher to accuse students of coming on to him before the kids complain.
This video is sure to go viral. NJEA is sure to spin.
More than 50 nominations awaiting action in state Senate
By Senator Joe Kyrillos
The failure of the Democratic majority in the state Senate to even consider, much less vote on, many of Gov. Chris Christie’s nominees started as ridiculous and is now verging on a constitutionally dangerous level of dysfunction. The state constitution states clearly that the governor is to make appointments to the courts and various agencies, and the Senate is to consider them and render its approval or disapproval.There are about 53 nominations ready to be heard by the Senate, including the director of the Division of Consumer Affairs, who regulates doctors, nurses and pharmacists; four members of the state Board of Education; and most importantly, a nominee for the state Supreme Court.
In addition, millions of dollars are being appropriated by important bodies such as the Turnpike Authority, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and the Sports and Exposition Authority by members whose terms have expired despite new appointments to these posts having been submitted long ago.
When I brought this subject up on the floor of the Senate, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee responded that the current situation with regard to gubernatorial appointments pending before the Senate is completely normal. With all due respect to my colleague, that is not true.
The Democrats’ inaction on appointments is unprecedented. Roughly 68 percent of the nominations submitted to the Senate this year have been stalled. In 2009, just 18 percent of Gov. Jon Corzine’s nominations were held up. In 2002, under Gov. James McGreevey, only 8 percent were delayed.
The blatant partisanship on display by Senate Democrats is more than irresponsible, especially with regard to the appointment of Anne Patterson to the state Supreme Court. That nomination has languished in the Senate since May, all because the Democratic Senate president wanted someone else for the job.
Refusing to even consider an extremely well-qualified nominee is a reprehensible dereliction of duty that will allow the chief justice of the Supreme Court to appoint an interim justice himself.
Allowing the court to choose its own members sets a dangerous precedent. Doing so circumvents the separation of powers between the branches of government and weakens checks and balances on an unelected judiciary. The chief justice will be able to appoint a member who is accountable to nobody but himself, with no check on his or her power by the public or the Legislature.
Unfortunately, should the Senate not act on these nominations before the middle of January, the nominations will expire. This will cause an additional delay in filling these vital offices. The clock is ticking on nominations to courts, boards, commissions and agencies that affect the daily lives of New Jersey residents.
Playing politics with the appointment process is more than a blemish on the institution of the Senate; it is a finger in the eye of the public that elected us to go to Trenton and get to work.
While municipalities and school boards throughout New Jersey are struggling with budget cuts and layoffs of teachers, police and other public workers, over in Rumson they’re fighting over whether the spring crew program will be administered by the Rumson Recreation Department or by Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School, according to a post this morning at RedBankGreen.
People who participate in crew are very passionate about it.
Growing up in Bergenfield, we didn’t have a crew team. Not one run by the Recreation Department or by the High School. The nearest river was the Hackensack. I guess it didn’t occur to anyone to row there.
At Georgetown I had some friends on the crew team. My roommate would get up before dawn and run, so he told me, like really run hard, down to the Potomac where the team would row for a couple of hours and then run up and down the stairs from the Exorcist movie for a while. I knew it was time to get up for my first class when I smelled him come back into our room and heard his groaning.
My girlfriend’s roommate was a coxswain. She was less than five feet tall and weighed less than 100 lbs. She got up before dawn too, did the running thing, and then sat on the back of the boat yelling at all of the guys through a bullhorn who did what she said. She loved it.
They all seemed very passionate about it. I didn’t get it, but I was happy for them. But I digress.
Why would smart adults be having a turf war over the crew team? That’s tougher for me to get my head around than trying to understand what my friends were so passionate about 35 years ago.
I don’t know the ins and outs of the issues is this controversy. The RBG article indicates it has something to do with which government entity owns the equipment. Doesn’t it all belong to the taxpayers? Ahh, but which taxpayers, Rumson’s or Fair Haven’s? Muncipal or School Board?
I suppose this is an opportunity to teach the kids a lesson in politics and red tape. Maybe they already mastered commitment, teamwork and the other character building lessons of scholastic athletics.
I never heard of an award winning Recreation Department sports team. I never heard of a kid earning a college scholarship based upon his or her performance on a Recreation Department team. But like I said, I’m not an expert on crew. Maybe somone from Princeton or the Philadephia Main Line could clear it up for me.
In the meantime, I bet that if the powers that be in Rumson and Fair Haven focused on what is best for the kids that the politics and red tape could be solved quickly. Wouldn’t that be a great lesson.
(Trenton)— Declaring that parents must be given tools to force changes in failing schools, Senator Joe Kyrillos (R- Monmouth) today announced that he has submitted groundbreaking education reform legislation to the Senate for consideration. The Parent Empowerment and Choice Act, known informally as the “parent trigger”, allows parents in chronically underperforming school districts to compel a variety of reforms be undertaken via petition.
“Children in dramatically underperforming school districts, many of which are in the poorest neighborhoods in New Jersey, report to class every day as unwilling actors in a modern tragedy,” said Senator Kyrillos. “These children are not afforded the education they need to make a better life for themselves, and are placed at a substantial disadvantage to their peers by government and the education establishment. Parents are given little choice but to look on as their children are failed in the most formative years of their lives. It is a moral imperative and an economic imperative that we not allow this to continue in New Jersey.”
Under the proposal, parents of children in a low performing school may petition to force the following reform measures at a particular school: (1) reopening as a charter school, (2) changes in school administrators including but not limited to the principal, (3) establishment of a tuition voucher program. The board of education or State district superintendent must grant the change if a majority of parents in the school in question sign the petition.
“The Parent Empowerment and Choice Act allows parents to take matters into their own hands when the system will not change on its own,” continued Kyrillos. “It allows for swift intervention to give children the educational opportunity state law requires, but all too often is not provided. While the refrain from defenders of the status quo is always to declare that change is difficult and takes time, that excuse does nothing for the children advancing through a troubled system. We cannot make time stand still in districts with severe shortcomings. Either we provide options to parents to effect rapid and wide ranging reforms, or children will continue to progress through an educational system that is not meeting their needs.”
The legislation is modeled after a grassroots initiative that originated in the Los Angeles Unified School District and was adopted statewide by the California Legislature in January 2010. It now moves to the Senate for a first reading and referral to the Senate Education Committee. For more information on parent-based school reforms, visit www.parentrevolution.org.
I can imagine Menendez and Frank Pallone sharing a laugh over a latte about this one.
Also mentioned on what D’Aprile described as the NJ GOP’s “thin bench” are Monmouth County Senators Joe Kyrillos and Jennifer Beck, Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno, NJ Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean, Jr, and former Senator Bill Baroni, now a Port Authority executive.
Scott Sipprelle and Diane Gooch should be on the list of potential Menendez challengers, especially given the NJ GOP’s historical preference for U.S. Senate candidates with the ability to self-fund their campaigns.
Sipprelle should be on the top of the list, if he would do it. His temperment and policy ambitions are more suited for the Senate than the House. Politically, Sipprelle could compete well with Menendez in Bergen County, Western Essex and much of Passaic. Menendez’s stategy would be to dominate Hudson, Bergen, Essex and Passiac, according to Democratic strategist Tony Bawidamann as quoted by D’Aprile. Sipprelle, who lived in Bergen prior to moving to Princeton, is better suited to suppress Menendez’s support in the north than the other names on the list. With a strong showing in Monmouth and Ocean combined with a competitive north, Sipprelle might actually win.
A lot can, and probably will, change in two years. If President Obama’s popularity recovers with the economy and he’s poised to win New Jersey by 15% again, Little could be the GOP nominee because no one else on the bench would want the slot and if there are no millionaires like Gooch or John Crowley willing to wage a vanity campaign.
Has anybody seen the real Anna Little lately? I haven’t seen her in months.
I’ve been intentionally restraining myself from writing about Anna Little since election day. We have a long history. Given that history, I offered her inner circle, which despite perceptions to the contrary I am not a member of, a private critique of what worked and what didn’t work about her congressional campaign. If not for our relationship, I just would have written my observations as I have after every election since I started this blog.
Little’s recent actions as Mayor of Highlands, my hometown, and the decision she will have to make next week over a labor agreement with the Highlands PBA compel me to treat her as I would any other public figure and write my observations with the candor I’ve been known for, yet have been withholding in her case.
When I started preparing this piece, it reminded me of the long running TV game show To Tell The Truth which ran in various forms from 1956 through 2002. The show featured a panel of four celebrities who were charged with correctly identifying a described contestant with an unusual occupation or experience. The “real” contestant and two impostors won the game if they fooled the panel. The real contestant was sworn to tell the truth when answering panelists’ questions. The impostors could lie. The game was over when the host said “Will the real X please stand up?”
The more I worked on the piece, the more I realized that To Tell The Truth didn’t fit. There were more than two impostors and they all inhabited the same body. Maybe Sybil is a more appropriate analogy. I don’t know that the psycho drama fits, but the multiple personalities and characters may be the majority of Little’s remaining supporters. Her Army is quickly becoming a figment of her imagination.
I think the real Anna Little is the woman I’ve known for almost 10 years. She’s been a principled public servant who would fight to do the right thing. She would fight for an ideal, regardless of the power and resources of her foes, winning and losing political battles, with scars. Often she produced improbable results. She always landed on her feet and emerged from battle with a smile. She was uncompromising to the point of being a pain the ass, but she was usually right.
The real Anna Little started the year as a Tea Party mama grizzly with charm. Tri-City News publisher Dan Jacobson called her “Sarah Palin with brains.” Her stump speech for the CD-6 congressional primary was musical and inspiring. It hit all the patriotic notes and inspired the best in her audiences. While she was challenging the establishment, she positioned herself as a uniter, promising the local and state party leadership that win or lose the primary she would rally her Tea Party supporters behind the Republican ticket.
Little delivered on her unity promise, partially, when she supported Joe Oxley for reelection as Monmouth County GOP Chairman hours after her stunning and improbable primary victory over Diane Gooch was official. However, she only went so far in uniting the troops. She never healed the primary wounds with the Gooch camp. There was griping and sniping from the Little camp throughout the general election campaign that the local GOP was not doing enough for her. She let that fester. While there was public unity with the Monmouth and Middlesex leadership, Little repeatedly snubbed the Union County GOP leadership. For now, let’s just say that Little’s horrendous showing in Plainfield was not solely the result of Frank Pallone’s superior ground game in the city.
The “real” Anna Little would not let those wounds fester.
Once she got her bearings in place for the general election, Little positioned herself as a “Chris Christie Republican” rather than a “Mama Grizzly.” This was not a Sybilesque malady, but smart political strategy. Christie had won the 6th congressional district in the previous election and his popularity was strong among the constituencies Little would have to win over in her quest to unseat Pallone.
When Little is on her game, her communications skills rival Christie’s and Palin’s. However, as the campaign progressed the inspiring stump speech she consistently delivered during the primary was often replaced with a defensive justification of her candidacy that fell flat. At home she would tell her audiences how much the national GOP and PACs in Washington loved her, as if the campaign was about her and as if her audiences cared.In Washington, she would tell her audiences how loved she was at home.
She was on her game and at her very best when among her enthusiastic supporters.Her performances at the debate at Temple Shalom in Aberdeen and at the health care forum in Red Bank were extraordinary.However, when in the presence of those who challenged her and without her “Army” to back her up, Little was often strident and argumentative. Her appearances with NJN’s Michael Aron, before the editorial boards of the Star Ledger and Asbury Park Press and one on one versus Pallone on News 12 are examples of when she was not at her best and needed to be.
Where was the “real” Anna Little?
Behind the scenes, Little actively alienated herself from long term supporters who would frankly tell her the truth about what was working and not working. It was as if she took constructive criticism from team members as personal attacks. The “real” Anna Little wouldn’t do that. She would argue and debate with trusted team members and then make a decision. The Anna Little that showed up during the general election campaign turned her back on her best local advisers and surrounded herself with “yes” men and women and people who did not know the district.She’d gone from a Palinesque Tea Partier, to a Christie Republican, to a Nixonian paranoid.
As the campaign reached its critical peak in mid-October, Little introduced yet another personality.She took a hard right turn and morphed into a Mike Huckabee Republican, only without the cornball charm.The fair tax, abortion and strict Ron Paulesque constitutionalist philosophy were not issues to emphasize during the last weeks of a general election campaign. Not when she had polling data that indicated a moderate Republican could defeat Pallone.She was pandering to her Right to Life supporters who were upset with how she handled the life question during her NJN appearance with Aron.
Despite these problems which were grumbled about behind the scenes among Tea Partiers and Regular Republicans alike, Little’s political stock was flying sky high, even after the polls closed and she lost by double digits when most observers were expecting a nail biter.In the final days of the election Monmouth County politicos were rooting for her victory because they didn’t want to have to compete with her in the event of a vacancy in the State Legislature after redistricting.Win or lose, she was expected to be a force to be reckoned with in Monmouth County politics.
In perhaps the fastest fall from grace since the Howard Dean scream, Little squandered torched that hard fought for political capitol before she got off the stage at her Shore Casino headquarters on election night.Apparently concerned about insulting either her Tea Party supporters or Regular Republicans who she never truly united, Little insulted both in her concession speech which was short on humility and gratitude and included an announcement of her 2012 candidacy for congress in a district that hasn’t been drawn yet, and the formation of three new political organizations, including one called “Anna’s Army” which she apparently presumed all of her hardworking supporters would just sign on for without any acknowledgement of what they had just finished doing and sacrificing.Did she expect to lose?How else could she have planned and even named these three new organizations within two hours of the polls closing?One television reporter commented on the air that Anna Little just wants the limelight.
Was this the “real” Anna Little?Did she have me fooled all these years?Was I the one who misunderstood her when I argued with others that they didn’t really know who she was?Maybe so.
This brings me to the present and why I’m writing this piece that has been eating me up inside since November 2.
I can support the Tea Party Mama Grizzly, the Christie Republican or the Huckabee Republican.The Nixonian paranoid is tough to deal with, but I’m Irish too and have dealt with such passive aggression for 52 years.I could forgive the election night performance and help her recover some of the political capitol she squandered.But I can’t support a Republican Mayor who is turning into a Corzine style Democrat as her latest character.
On December 1st Little sandbagged her Republican colleagues on the Highlands Council.She showed up unexpectedly and joined the Democrats on the council in approving a hastily drawn labor agreement that will either needlessly increase the costs of Highlands government or handcuff her successor in managing Highlands budget like Jon Corzine did when he made a hasty deal with the state workers unions on primary day in 2009 so that Vice President Joe Biden would join him on the stage for his campaign kickoff. Corzine’s deal prevented Governor Christie from laying off state workers during the first year of his administration.Little’s deal probably won’t prevent layoffs in the Highlands Police Department.More likely the deal will end up costing Highlands taxpayers between $60,000 and $150,000 over the next two fiscal years.Little knows this.
The payoff for Corzine’s expensive sellout was clear. What Little thinks she accomplishing, after assuring her Republican colleagues that she was with them, is a mystery.Maybe she’s delusional enough to think that her actions will win her union support in her hypothetical rematch with Pallone in 2012.Hopefully she just had a bad night and didn’t realize the consequences of her actions, despite her words to the contrary that evening and since.
Fortunately Little has a second chance with this one.The PBA agreement has to be voted on again on Wednesday December 15th.Little could miss the meeting, which means the agreement would not carry on a 2-2 vote. Or one of the Republican Littles could show up.For the sake of Highlands taxpayers, I hope the Little Corzine does not show up.
By Art Gallagher
The more I worked on the piece, the more I realized that