Chris Christie promises to take ‘extreme measures’ on pension if Democrats don’t play ball (via NJ.com)
LONG HILL — The day after his budget address, an upbeat Gov. Chris Christie returned to a message that has worked for him in the past: State finances are in trouble and only he can help. The Republican governor urged Democrats in the state Legislature…
The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled 3-2 with Chief Justice Stuart Rabner not participating, this morning in Paul M. DePascale v State of New Jersey that the pension and health benefits reforms passed by the legislature and signed into law by Governor Christie last year violates the State Constitution’s provision prohibiting a reduction in judges salaries during their terms. Thus, New Jersey Judges will not be contributing more to their pensions and health benefits, unless the Constitution is amended.
The issue now goes back to the Legislature. Legislation putting a Constitutional amendment on the ballot this fall was held up in June pending the Supreme Court’s decision.
Posted: July 24th, 2012 | Author: Art Gallagher | Filed under: NJ Courts, NJ Judiciary, NJ Supreme Court, Pensions | Tags: Chief Justice Stuart Rabner, NJ Supreme Court, Pension and Benefit Reform | 2 Comments »
By Art Gallagher
NJBiz is reporting that up to 80 tenured New Jersey Judges will file suit later this month challenging the recent pension and health benefit reforms passed by the State Legislature and signed into law by Governor Christie.
The suit is to be filed in Hudson County and a Hudson County Judge will be one of the name plaintiffs.
Judges currently earn between $165,000 to $192,795 each year, and contribute from $4,950 to $5,783 to their pensions annually, according to the memo, which was issued by Superior Court Judge Melvin Gelade. Under the recently passed public worker pension and health legislation, judges hired after January 1996 would, after seven years, see their annual retirement contributions jump to between $19,800 and $23,135 a year.
The suit will ask for a temporary injunction blocking the changes, and is expected to be filed in a Hudson County court, with a Hudson County judge to be named as the lead plaintiff.
“It is anticipated that only tenured judges should actively participate in, and contribute to, the financing of a suit,” according to the memo. “Non-tenured judges may anticipate being asked about their involvement at their reappointment hearings.”
Attorney Justin Walder, a member of the Roseland law firm Walder, Hayden & Brogan, will represent the plaintiffs, according to the memo. Walder did not return multiple calls seeking comment.
“The state constitution prevents the government from tampering with our compensation while we’re serving our term,” said a judge who expects to join the suit. “We thought we would be exempt from Christie’s pension and health cutbacks, but this appears to be payback for the state Supreme Court’s Abbott District ruling.”
The judges believe the suit will ultimately reach the state Supreme Court, and hope to have the high court hear it before Christie nominee Anne Patterson is seated in September, according to the judge, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Chief Justice Stuart Rabner will recuse himself from the case, the judge added.
Well it is a good thing that Rabner will recuse himself, but how do they know that given that the suit hasn’t been filed yet?
How can any New Jersey Judge possibly hear this case without a conflict?
Editors note: The following column by Dan Jacobson was originally published in the June 16, 2011 edition of the triCityNews. It was written before the recent agreement of pension and health care reform struck by Governor Christie, Senate President Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Oliver.
By Dan Jacobson
Any day now, you’ll see our Republican Governor and Democratic legislative leaders announce a deal to “reform” our state pension system.
Don’t believe it. This is a problem requiring 20 years of fiscal discipline. These people can’t see beyond the next election in 20 weeks.
Our state government is $121 billion short of what’s needed to pay projected pension and retiree health benefits. How bad is it? This year’s proposed state budget is only $29.4 billion.
In other words, we’re bankrupt.
Remember the rioting in Greece last year? You bet there could be tear gas over Trenton if this isn’t fixed. And I’m not optimistic.
Last week, I announced I’m running for the state Assembly as an Independent. So let me piss off everyone by outlining what needs to be done. And it’s ugly. No way around it.
First, this problem must be ripped away from the politicians. I’d propose a state constitutional amendment – requiring voter approval – to establish an independent Board of Trustees to administer the pension and retirement health benefits system.
Each year, these independent Trustees would recalculate the total projected shortfall the state faces. No fudging the numbers by politicians. And the Board of Trustees would develop and oversee a long-term plan to restore the system – and thus the state’s finances – to solvency.
In addition, the Board would determine the annual contribution to the system – and it would have to be paid by the state. The elected officials have underfunded it for 15 years. With a constitutional amendment, that would end. No more cheating. We’d pay what’s needed to fix the problem.
And the Board of Trustees would be empowered to do what the politicians can’t: Set up a plan of benefit cuts and tax increases to fix the system by spreading the pain as widely as possible. And the wider it’s spread, the less it hurts everyone individually. Everyone has got to take a hit. We’re all in this mess together.
By the way, those benefit cuts would affect current and future retires already in the system. There’s no other way to do it. Elected officials only talk about changing the benefits for new employees. That’s not enough. So I envision everyone equally screaming – taxpayers, retirees, future retirees – when the Trustees propose a plan to fix this mess. Ironically, that way you know it’s fair.
But this is not a dictatorship. The rescue plan from the Board of Trustees would be submitted for voter approval.
If voters reject it, the Pension Trustees would simply take what’s needed every year from the state Treasury to ensure the system’s solvency. In that scenario, the three-ring circus in the State House – the Governor, the Assembly and the Senate – would figure out how to pay that annual bill. Of course, that will be a mess. But the bill would be paid. No more underfunding the system. No more postponing Judgment Day. I’d rather face it on our terms.
There you have it. That’s the basic outlines of my proposal. Here’s some more details:
The Board of Pension Trustees would be non-political like Judges. They’d be appointed by the Governor with the consent of the state Senate. None would have business or financial connection to unions for at least a decade, if not more. They’d have long and staggered terms as Trustees to minimize political interference.
And in putting together a rescue plan, their directive in the constitutional amendment would be quite specific: To implement a mix of both benefit cuts and tax increases – and it would specifically require both – to spread the burden as equitably as possible across all the citizens of this state.
Sure, that would require subjective judgments. There’s no mathematical formula to achieve this. But at least a rescue plan by the Trustees would be made in good faith by non-political appointees – not politicians seeking reelection. And voters would have the final say.
In other words, we’d face this problem like adults. We’d empower an independent group of people to tell us the truth. And propose a solution for us to consider. We’d then make the final call in a statewide vote.
Sure sounds better than tear gas canisters fired at protestors when a bankrupt state can’t pay its bills – and people become more outraged than anything we’ve ever seen in New Jersey.
But maybe all is not lost. Take the sentiment of retired state worker Vincent Lobascio, 85. He’s ready to sacrifice some of his benefits. Let’s hope most other citizens share his views – or we’re done.
“I’m willing to make my contribution, and I’m a retired guy,” the World War II combat veteran told the Asbury Park Press in a story about the pension crisis. “But don’t kill me.”
I’m with Mr. Lobascio. This 49 year-old taxpayer would pay more to solve this mess – just don’t kill me either. We’re all adults. We all know something must be done. Just spread that burden around as widely as possible. In the end, the solution is likely reasonable.
But politicians can’t do that because they’re competing for the support of blocs of voters – whether liberal union members or anti-tax conservatives. It’s all about getting elected. In fact, both those voter blocs I just mentioned will be outraged at this column.
Oh well. So I’ll get to remain a private citizen. Wow, what a tragedy.
So when you see our Republican Governor and Democratic legislative leaders announce some deal to address this problem, remember this: It’s all about the election in five months when the Senate and Assembly are up for grabs. It’s not a permanent deal. It can always be reversed or changed later. And you bet that will happen when the economy starts to do better and no one is paying attention.
Sure, they’ll make some progress with their deal – just enough to con you to think something is getting done. But not on a scale that really solves this problem. There’s not enough political upside and way too much political downside. The state has never faced a challenge this big. Plus, I don’t believe any figures or estimates these clowns throw around. They’re all biased toward getting reelected.
But a constitutional amendment empowering an independent Board of Trustees goes a long way toward eliminating political mischief.
And in my proposal, we’d even get to vote on any rescue plans from the Trustees. If they want to modify a rescue plan later, we’d all vote on that too. If any plan is rejected, the state would still fully fund the retirement system every year and stop the cheating. Imagine how different everything would be if that was done for the past 15 years.
Hey, such a constitutional amendment sounds reasonable to me. That means it doesn’t have a chance in Trenton.
So in the most unlikely event I get elected to the Assembly – only one Independent has done so in 50 years – at least there’d be one person down there speaking the truth about the most dangerous problem this state has ever faced.
(The 11th District where I’m running includes: Asbury Park, Long Branch, Red Bank, Ocean Township, Neptune, Neptune City, Interlaken, Deal, Allenhurst, Loch Arbour, West Long Branch, Eatontown, Shrewsbury Borough, Shrewsbury Township, Tinton Falls, Colts Neck, Freehold Township and Freehold Borough.)
Posted: June 17th, 2011 | Author: Art Gallagher | Filed under: Dan Jacobson, NJ Media, NJ State Legislature, Pensions, Public Employee Unions | Tags: 11th Legislative District, Dan Jacobson, Pension and Benefit Reform | 3 Comments »By Art Gallagher
Now that Senate President Stephen Sweeney has agreed with Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver’s proposal that government employee pension and health benefit reforms be temporary and guts key elements of the reforms that Governor Christie and Sweeney agreed to, it seems as though we are in danger of business as usual prevailing in Trenton.
If Governor Chris Christie goes along with this “compromise,” real sustainable reform of New Jersey’s government is not going to happen. “Reform” will just be a short term fix to get us through the tough economic times made with the rosy assumption that the economy will improve to the point where we can afford to bestow free health care and overly generous pensions to our “public servants.”
What I found most alarming about this Star Ledger article was not that Sweeney and Oliver may have outmaneuvered Christie (InTheLobby speculates that the unions have already agreed to the deal despite their public protests to the contrary and that Christie will go along with it), but the fact that the deal effects the state’s 500,000 public workers.
That’s one public worker for every 17 New Jersey residents.
I’m assuming that includes county and municipal workers, as the U.S. Census reports that NJ has 154,000 state employees and 360,000 local government employees. Will legislation currently being negotiated in Trenton override contracts that counties and municipalities already have in place? If so, that would be terrible for Middletown taxpayers where the the governing body got the police to agree to pay 25% of their health care in order to avoid layoffs. How would the 2% property tax cap work if the State makes deals that override better deals that municipal governments have negotiated.
Hopefully the Star Ledger reporter got his figures wrong.
Regardless of the largess we bestow on state and local government employees, 500,000 employees “serving” 8.7 million people seems like awfully big government. And that doesn’t include federal government employees located in New Jersey.
I various government websites for about an hour trying to find how many federal government employees are located in New Jersey. I found that the federal government, with 2,000,000 employees, not including the post office, is the nation’s largest employer. 85% of federal employees are located outside of the Washington DC metro area. But I couldn’t find a state by state break down of the employees. I wonder why that information is so hard to find.
Let’s assume its only 50,000 between Homeland Security, the military, law enforcement and social security offices.
That would mean that in New Jersey, one in every 16 people is on the government payroll.
It is little wonder that New Jersey is rank next to last in freedom.
Posted: June 14th, 2011 | Author: Art Gallagher | Filed under: Pensions, Public Employee Unions | Tags: Freedom, Pension and Benefit Reform | 7 Comments »By Art Gallagher
While the NJEA and CWA are pressuring the Democrats in the Legislature to stop the pension and benefit reforms that Governor Christie and Senate President Sweeney have agreed to, the media is looking to create public sympathy for state retirees.
The Asbury Park Press has a piece this morning, Former NJ state workers ask: Now what? The article by Jason Method of Gannett’s Statehouse bureau is an expose of the worries of a 85 year old retired DOT bus inspector who faces possible increased co-pays for his life saving medicine and the loss of cost of living adjustments under the Christie-Sweeney plan. The three time cancer survivor who still remembers to worst bus accident he ever investigated and is taking care of his son who has been out of work for three years is worried.
His son, who is probably in his 50’s or 60’s should be very worried. If junior had followed in his father’s footsteps and taken a state job he wouldn’t be a burden on dear old Dad.
The millions of private sector workers and business owners who will pay the bill for the state workers retirement and health care before they pay for their own should also be very worried. We’ve been worried for years. Very worried for the last three years as we have cut back expenses and adjusted our expectations for the future based on the reality that the borrowing and speculation orgy that fuel economic “growth” over the last twenty years is over.
Posted: June 10th, 2011 | Author: Art Gallagher | Filed under: Economy | Tags: Pension and Benefit Reform | 1 Comment »NJEA And CWA Oppose Deal
Capitol Quickies has a summary of the proposed deal that reportedly has been agreed to by Governor Christie, Senate President Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver.
There have been multiple news reports of shouting, not cheers, coming from the Democratic Assembly caucus room. Oliver said “we’re not there yet” about her caucus supporting the deal.
In the past Oliver has implied that she will not pass the deal with the support of Republican Assembly members. In effect, even if the majority of the Assembly supports the reform legislation, Oliver won’t allow it to be voted on unless a majority of the Assembly Democrats support it. There are 33 Republican Assembly members, 46 Democrats and one vacancy. If Republican unanimously support the deal and 7 Democrats join them, the legislation would pass. Oliver who said, “My caucus must have the chance to have their concerns considered. The voters who elected them deserve no less,” won’t let that happen.
What do the voters who elected Assembly members who support the reforms deserve?
The presidents of the NJEA and the CWA condemned the deal, saying it would reduce employee compensation and was an assault on collective bargaining.
That sounds like progress.
Posted: June 9th, 2011 | Author: Art Gallagher | Filed under: Public Employee Unions | Tags: Pension and Benefit Reform | Comments Off on Pension and Benefit Reform Deal Meets Resistance In Democratic Assembly CaucusBy Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon, 12th Legislative District
It is distressing that even now – with New Jersey on the brink of fiscal disaster – powerful people in Trenton, with the ability to get real things done, are more interested in gamesmanship and political advantage than in simply fixing things.
There is not a caring resident in New Jersey who isn’t aware that one of the biggest threats to our State’s fiscal health is the mess that has become our pension system. For more than a decade our State’s leaders – governors and complicit legislative leaders – have simultaneously increased promised benefits – to buy the votes of workers – and failed to make billions of dollars of payments to cover those promised benefits – using the money instead to buy votes of other constituencies.
Of course these disastrous policies couldn’t go on forever and our New Jersey house of cards has begun to crumble. This past week the first major consequence of our years of irresponsibility hit home – our bond rating was lowered which will increase our borrowing costs and drain more of our precious resources. If we don’t fix our pension system quickly and comprehensively we will face more consequences – skyrocketing taxes, drastically slashed pension payouts to workers and an economy hobbled by a government that will soon more mirror that of a third world county than one of the United States.
Thankfully Governor Christie isn’t interested in the fleeting benefits of kicking the can down the road and he has no intention of tolerating such irresponsible behavior from our legislative leaders either. The days of timid action producing meaningless reforms by people with big mouths – the better for uttering self congratulations – and long arms – the better for patting themselves on the back – are over.
I am a sponsor of the package of pension reforms put forward by the administration. The legislation is straight forward – increases in pension contributions, increases in the time that workers must serve, and the age they must attain, before qualifying for full pensions, elimination of cost of living increases and a rollback of the biggest, arbitrary and unfunded benefit increases in years past. If we take these actions now we can fix the system – to the benefit of public workers and taxpayers – and avoid the drastic cuts in benefits and crushing taxes that will be necessary should we fail to act.
Our reform proposals are not an attack on teachers, firemen, police or other public employees. On the contrary – our public workers arguably have the most at stake if our pension system collapses. Public workers should not be fooled into joining what we know will be a knee jerk reaction by some to fight this – or any – reform. Success in thwarting reform will only mean tougher measures, or a collapse of the system, later.
The counter reform proposal put forth by Democrat legislative leaders is another, unfortunate example of what has become a sting of “RINO” (reform in name only) proposals they’ve put forward during the past year. We haven’t seen any remotely accurate projections of the actual results of their proposals and we won’t – because their proposals aren’t designed to solve the problem, they’re designed to fool the public into giving them credit for trying. These same legislative leaders have held up reform over the past half year with the inane threat that they wouldn’t move on reform until the governor made a payment into the system. That’s like a doctor refusing to remove a cancer patient’s tumor until the patient promises to start eating vegetables and excercising. Don’t get me wrong – we must make payments, but every day we delay dealing with the reforms we know we must make adds to the cost and pain of the final remedy – and brings us closer to the point of no return.
The suggestion inherent in this make-a-payment-or-we’ll-hold-up-reform challenge is that somehow the Governor took some pleasure in the choice not to make a pension payment last year. Here’s a news flash – the governor didn’t use the money meant for the pension system on wild parties on the roof of the Statehouse. He was dealing with the largest deficit in our State’s history – left to him by the irresponsible polices of the very same people now shamelessly, desperately trying to turn the blame away from themselves. Governor Christie has now pledged to start making regular payments and has also proposed comprehensive reforms that will fix the system. That has never happened before. The people carping now had complete control of our government over the past 8 years and condoned the failure to make payments into the system (in what were demonstrably better economic times) and put forward no reforms, putting the fiscal well-being of every New Jersey taxpayer and public worker in grave danger. I won’t hold my breath waiting for their acknowledgement of responsibility. But this administration – and responsible members of the legislature on both sides of the aisle – won’t let them continue to get away with the shameful, deceitful behavior that has brought us so close to the edge of fiscal disaster.
Posted: March 8th, 2011 | Author: admin | Filed under: Declan O'Scanlon, Pensions | Tags: Declan O'Scanlon, Pension and Benefit Reform | 2 Comments »© Copyright 2024 | MoreMonmouthMusings | All Rights Reserved