Bergen County Sheriffs Office leads New Jersey in double-dipping by county cops
February 28,2015
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Under Sheriff Michael Saudino Bergen County leads New Jersey in double-dipping by county cops. The sheriff and four of his undersheriffs collectively reap a million dollars a year in pension pay on top of their six-figure salaries.
First-year Sheriff Michael Saudino ranks first among all double-dippers, raking in a whopping $268,000 a year. Saudino, 59, gets a $130,000 pension for retiring as Emerson Borough police chief on Dec. 31, plus a$138,000 salary since taking office as sheriff the following day.
Undersheriff Steven Librie gleans $219,000 a year – $115,000 in salary and $104,000 in pension. Librie, 50,retired as deputy police chief of Teaneck Twp. in August 2010, then was hired as undersheriff in January.
Undersheriff Brian P. Smith hauls in $218,000 a year – his $110,000 salary plus a $108,000 pension. He retired at age 50 from the Paramus Police Dept. in 2005, then he was hired as undersheriff this year.
Undersheriff Robert A. Colaneri receives in $204,000 a year – a $110,000 salary plus $94,000 in pension. Colaneri, 56, was hired as undersheriff in January 2011 after retiring from Carlstadt Borough in 2006.
Undersheriff Harry Shortway Jr. gets $186,000 a year – his $110,000 salary plus $76,000 in pension. Shortway, 72, retired from Ridgewood Village in 2001, then was hired by Bergen County as undersheriff in January 2011.
It gets worse and its a statewide problem ,according to Mark Lagerkvist of New Jersey Watchdog . Gov. Chris Christie while preaching pension reform hasn’t done much to curb double dipping by public employees.
New Jersey’s costly tradition of double-dipping — allowing government employees to “retire,” start collecting a pension and then return to work for the state, often the next day or week.
By the end of 2012 New Jersey Watchdog found 60 double-dippers who collect a total of nearly $10 million a year — $4.4 million in pensions in addition to $5.5 million in state salaries.
One-third of them were hired under the Christie administration with duties as government officials to protect taxpayers from fiscal foul play and abuses of the public trust. They include:
By the end of 2012 three investigators for the Office of State Comptroller — John Silver, Joseph Celli and Richard Nuel — collectively receive $262,415 a year in pensions plus in $276,000 in salaries. OSC is charged with uncovering waste, abuse and fraud in government.
Assistant Insurance Commissioner Joseph Brennan claims $204,857 a year — $123,000 in salaryand $81,857 from pension. Brennan heads a unit that investigates insurance fraud.
Medical Marijuana Director John O’Brien harvests $167,889 a year — $83,889 in pension plus his$84,000 salary from the Department of Health.
Thomas Flarity, director of security, investigations and audits for the Motor Vehicle Commission, counts on $188,544 a year — $105,000 in salary and $83,544 from pension.
Christie’s Deputy Chief of Staff Louis Goetting (pronounced “getting”) gets $228,860 a year —$140,000 in salary plus $88,860 from pension. Goetting is Christie’s budget guru on cutting the cost of government.
That year Christie gave his deputy chief a $10,000 annual raise this year, following New Jersey Watchdog’s report that Goetting had received$1.1 million in early retirement pay and severance packages from public coffers.
The 60 double-dippers receive an average of $165,000 a year — $73,517 from pension plus $92,461 in salary. Fifty-seven are state law enforcement officials who retired under a special law that allows them to receive full pensions after 25 years regardless of age. Twenty-eight retired while still in their 40s.
While this is only the tip of the iceberg for the state pension mess some estimates for fully funding pension promises accrued to date would require an immediate payment of either $37 billion, $83 billion, or $150 billion depending on whether you get your numbers from public plan actuaries, GASB, or me.https://burypensions.wordpress.com/2015/01/19/how-n-j-got-into-this-pension-mess/
Moody’s says the New Jersey Public Employees Retirement System (PERS) and the Teachers’ Pension and Annuity Fund (TPAF) “could fully expend their assets as soon as 2024 and 2027… even assuming the funds meet assumed investment returns.”https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy-policy/2014/12/03/moodys-nj-pensions-to-run-dry-in-ten-years/
And by some estimates New Jersey pension system faces as much as a $170 billion short fall.https://watchdog.org/186029/new-jersey-pension-debt/
Well Gov. Christie why don’t you start pension reform with you administration first.
TRENTON — Two years after GOP Gov. Chris Christie signed a law requiring public workers to contribute significantly more toward their benefits, 151 lobbyists and insurers remain in the state pension system, their pensions and lifetime health care being subsidized by state taxpayers.
The employees are from six groups that either do business with the government, like the New Jersey League of Municipalities, or insure government entities, like the New Jersey School Boards Association, according to the Treasury Department, which oversees the pensions division. Despite several legislative attempts to wean nongovernment employees from the Public Employee Pension System, agreement has been elusive and the effort has stalled.
“Public pensions are for retired public employees who worked hard to serve the taxpayers of New Jersey,” said Assemblyman Parker Space, a northwest Jersey Republican who is co-sponsoring the most recent attempt to shed the outsiders from the state retirement system. “It’s outrageous to think that already overburdened residents are being asked to foot the retirement bills of private-sector lobbyists.”
The former head of a taxpayer-supported lobbying group sought unemployment benefits shortly after retiring in December with a $99,000-a-year public pension and lifetime health, prescription and dental coverage, documents show.
Celeste Carpiano sought the jobless payments in addition to her $8,227 monthly pension check — that atop a one-time $53,221 credit for unused sick and vacation time payable when she resigned Dec. 31 as the executive director of the New Jersey Association of Counties.
The New Jersey League of Municipalities, New Jersey School Boards Association and New Jersey Association of Counties are not a part of state government, but operate instead as private advocacy groups.
The organizations receive dues from member governments, all of which collect property taxes, and pay the employer contribution for their employees’ public benefits. The organizations’ employees were granted eligibility for the state pension system more than 50 years ago.
Now, some of the employees, including top executives and lobbyists, make salaries that total well over $100,000, and even though taxpayers have no direct control over those high salaries, they are on the hook for paying out pension benefits that are tied to them. The state pension system bases monthly benefits payments on an employee’s three top-earning years.
MORIARTY: CHRISTIE LEAVES LOBBYISTS IN STATE PENSION & BENEFITS SYSTEM
(4th LEGISLATIVE DISTRICT) – Assemblyman Paul Moriarty on Wednesday said Gov. Chris Christie has inexplicably let down New Jersey taxpayers by failing to sign a bill he sponsored to prohibit new employees of lobbying organizations from enrolling in the taxpayer-paid benefits system.
“Gov. Christie has put the interests of lobbyists over taxpayers,” said Moriarty (D-Gloucester/Camden). “That’s puzzling and inexcusable. Taxpayers deserve this protection but the governor instead favored lobbyists. This is real blow to our ongoing reform efforts.”
Moriarty sponsored legislation (A-2499 from the last legislative session) to ban enrollment in any state-administered retirement system for newly hired officers and employees of the New Jersey State League of Municipalities, the New Jersey Association of Counties, the New Jersey School Boards Association, any school board insurance group, any county college joint insurance group, any county or municipal joint insurance fund and any corporation designated to manage a special improvement district established by municipal ordinance.
The bill also would have eliminated the eligibility of these new officers and employees for health care benefits coverage through the State Health Benefits Program or through any health care benefits plan or program provided by a state or local government.
Christie included in the bill in his so-called Tool Kit, yet failed to take action on it before noon Tuesday. Thus, it expired and failed to become law.
“Gov. Christie should have made it a priority to sign this bill and put in motion a way to finally remove lobbyists from our pension system,” Moriarty said. “No bill is perfect, but this bill had bipartisan support and represented a huge leap in the right direction while building upon our pension reform bills. Instead, we will continue to have lobbyists in the pension system thanks to Gov. Christie’s failure to sign the bill. If the Governor truly wants to work together, this bill should have been signed.”
See Governor on the Ridgewood Blog you can’t bully people from speaking out. You can’t tell us to “Sit Down and Shut Up”. If you and the suits of the League of Municipalities, what Meaningful Pension Reform then stop demonizing the state works who fix the roads. The teachers who are in the classrooms. The police who patrol the roads. The fireman who fight fires All are full time employees of the state of NJ and work and pay into their pension for 25 years before the can retire. Get rid of your cronies in your administration and lobbies who are double dipping or are eligible for a state pension and medical benefits. The League of Municipalities, all I can say is you have some nerve complaining about pension while some of your own members who never work a day for the State of Nj are eligible of medical benefits and pensions for the state. Maybe if you took care of your members that are draining the system the full time works and retires who look at pension reform as not such a hard pill to sallow. Th old adage that “I got mine screw everyone else ” Work very well for you blowhards and hypocrites
Does anyone know if our Governor receives a pension and lifetime medical benefits when he leaves office like congress and senators in the fed government. If he does thats not bad for 8 years
Is there a way to find out if any current village employees are collecting two salaries from the Village under different job titles or two pensionable incomes?
Why are part 10% of our property taxes going to Bergen County to fund things like Saudino’s $22,000 health care plan? Why can’t he pay for that himself out of his $268,000 annual double-dip? Private sector workers already pay for their own health care coverage, so we are also giving thugs like Saudino “platinum” coverage on top of that? All public sector workers in Ridgewood and the County should pay the same amount out of pocket for their annual health coverage as comparable private sector plans cost…. it’s only fair given these guys are making more than the median household income in Ridgewood. We’re being taxed to death to pay for these double-dipping scum bags.
This guys epitomizes “tax payer abuse”. Isn’t he the same guy who tried to get Bergen County to take two MRAPs from DoD with no clear rules of engagement on what constituted necessary cause to use them, and no budget requests for the extra insurance, fuel, and required specialized mechanic needed to maintain these WMDs?
$1.1 million a year for five double-dipping pensionistas… Georgia just offered $23 million in tax incentives to lure Mercedes-Benz from Montvale to Atlanta at a loss of 1,000 jobs in NJ. Is it any wonder they left when we’re paying some of the highest property taxes IN THE COUNTRY to fund $1.1 million a year in double-dipping by 5 thugs in the Sheriff’s Office? Georgia: “1,000 jobs are worth $23 million in tax breaks for Mercedes”. Bergen County: “Let’s pay five good ol’ boys $1.1 million a year to double-dip”. #unsustainable
Wait to he expands the Sheriff Dept. to pay back all his Democratic friend that are backing him.
Shortway is 72? I thought cops retired at 50?
Just google the rest of the Sheriff Dept in the state there all doing the same thing along with the members in Governor administration.
Hey anonymous at 9:52am, I completely agree with you that Christie should walk the walk and ban all double-dippers from his Administration and stop appointing his lobbyist buddies to crony roles at the PA, etc. But do you really like paying over $2.0 million per mile of state road in NJ? Why? That’s 12X the national average and 3X more than the next highest state, Massachusetts, where union labor gets every mile done for $600,000. Why are you defending corruption and tax payer abuse? If the unions can’t figure out how to do the work for $600,000 per state mile in NJ, the work should be open bid out to private contractors who will gladly do the work for $600,000 a mile and will mostly likely deliver better quality roads, on time, and on budget unlike the thugs you and your buddy Senator Sanzari…. oops, I mean Sarlo, are defending. Bad behavior like that is unsustainable, just like Christie allowing double dipping and cronyism will destroy his administration’s record. We need a guy like Scott Walker in NJ.
Chris Christie is the fourth-highest paid governor in the nation, after his counterparts in Pennsylvania, New York and Illinois, a survey released today shows.
Christie’s annual pay of $175,000 is $2,412 less than what Gov. Pat Quinn of Illnois makes, $4,000 less than what Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York is paid, and $12,256 less than the salary of Gov. Tom Corbett of Pennsylvania, according to the survey, which was released today by the Council of State Governments.
The lowest-paid state chief executive in the nation is Gov. Paul LePage of Maine, who makes $70,000, followed by Gov. Mike Beebe or Arkansas, at $86,890, the survey shows.
The average salary among the nation’s governors is $133,348, or $41,652 less than Christie’s pay, which is set by the New Jersey legislature.
Christie also receives $75,000 for expenses, plus use of the governor’s mansion in Princeton and a summer place at Island Beach.
We also spend way, way too much on cop & fire salaries, longevity bonuses, and accumulated leave payouts in Ridgewood, not to mention the fact that these guys retire in their early 50s on full pensions and get “platinum” healthcare coverage for minimal out of pocket expense while the rest of us subsidize their elaborate retirement benefits. Ridgewood already has nine former municipal workers drawing +$100K pensions (full list is here https://watchdog.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/02/2014-100K-club-by-employer.pdf ), up from just four in 2011. Given we’re living longer than when these guys first started working, guys retiring today will almost surely draw a pension for more years than they worked. That’s unsustainable, we have to find ways to slow the growth in these expenses even though the pension tsunami is already on our shores.
Im 9:52 and your right 12:12. Im just tired of this Bully blaming everting on one or two group will he allows the same thing in his administration then goes off on his world wind political tours of the united states on our dime. There are a lot of thing that need fixing in N.J. Your right go out to bid union or non union.
Agree, Christie’s toast. We deserve way better.
like cozine or mac creepy ?
Funny James, how about a guy like Scott Walker who would stand up to the unions and get results unlike the garden gnome we’ve got
He will busy at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave
See 12:20 you always come back to Ridgewood Police and Fire. You don’t care what happen at the County or state level. I guess there are no hidden payouts at that County or State level Why don’t you quote some stats about that? Better yet move to Trenton so you can be close to the action.
can we clone him?
No, I care about the County and State level, too… just pointing out that Ridgewood municipal +$100K retirees have almost TRIPLED in three years versus an inflation rate since then under 2%…. that’s sustainable?
So what about county and state retires pensions and their double dipping !2:46. Can you point anything out about the inflation rate there. After all your taxes go to paying that also. You know to be fair and balance.
Oh 12:46 thats not sustainable but state pensions and medical benefits for lobbyist and and double dippers members of the League of Municipalities and our Gov cronies is sustainable?
Maybe if New Jersey didn’t give out $4,813,940.001.00 in corporate welfare our taxes wouldn’t be so high!
https://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/top-states
While one of the central tenets of repeated calls for major changes to New Jersey’s public pension system is the claim that public employee pensions are overly generous, retirement benefits for the state’s public workers are already among the least generous of all large public-sector pensions in the country, in part because of cuts enacted in the pension reforms of 2011.
Ref: https://njpp.org/assets/reports/NJPPPensionBenefitsDecember2014.pdf
In fact, New Jersey ranks 95th in pension generosity among the country’s 100 largest plans.
New Jersey retirees have no automatic protection against inflation. While 69 of the 100 largest plans offer retirees some inflation protection, cost-of-living adjustments for New Jersey retirees were suspended indefinitely by the 2011 legislative pension reforms.
New Jersey uses a very low multiplier. The percentage by which New Jersey calculates state pensions per year of service – known as the multiplier – is among the lowest nationally, at 1.67 percent. This means pensions benefits equal 1.67 percent of final salary multiplied by the number of years of service; 1.67 percent is a lower multiplier than all but 21 of the 100 plans. New Jersey lowered the multiplier from 1.81 percent in 2011.
New Jersey employees pay more into the system than those in most other systems. New Jersey public employees contribute 6.93 percent of their salaries to their own pensions, more than 55 other plans in the top 100. By 2018, the employee contribution level for New Jersey pensions will rise to 7.5 percent, which is more than employees contribute today in about two-thirds of the top 100 plans.
In addition to being some of the least generous pensions in the country, New Jersey’s pensions are modest in dollar amounts, even though the Garden State remains one of the highest-cost states in which to live.
Among the five major pension funds covering public workers in New Jersey, recent retirees in the judicial pension system collected the largest average annual benefit and contributed the smallest percentage of their salaries, prior to the new pension reform law.
TRENTON — About one in three state lawmakers received a second public paycheck last year, new disclosure reports show.
Of New Jersey’s 120 senators and Assembly members, at least 36 held a second publicly financed job. They worked as teachers, mayors, municipal prosecutors, police officers, school administrators and adjunct college professors.
We all know this place is expensive to live, and all of the posters gave good examples.
So when it’s time to leave, where Is the least expensive place to go, that has decent healthcare , decent climate, and not a lot of low life hillbillies? Maybe James can start a new thread?
Fla is a destination, but the killer there is that even if property taxes are less than NJ a home owners insurance policy that is $800 in NJ exceeds $800 in Fla.
They also ding you on the “intangibles” tax on your financial assets when you move in.
Ands it’s warm in the summer.
Actually, $4.8 billion in corporate tax breaks is less than half of the $8.7 billion in pension checks the state sent out to public workers last year. Would you rather pay $4.8bn to keep existing jobs and attract new investment to NJ, or pay $8.7bn for past promises? Remember we are competing with NY, CT, PA, GA, etc for jobs and investment. Based on the same source you union guys all use, NY alone offers $21 billion a year in tax incentives, and if you think those financial firms in Jersey City can’t easily move to Manhattan or Westchester, then you must b one of those receiving a pension check
Families and small businesses pick up the tab for egregious tax loopholes exploited by big business.
https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2012/04/05/how-everyone-else-pays-for-big-businesss-tax-breaks
Some politicians might believe that “corporations are people,” as former Gov. Mitt Romney declared last year.
At tax time, however, corporations enjoy better treatment than ordinary folks. While millions of individual Americans file last-minute income tax returns this month, some major corporations won’t pay a dime despite reaping record profits.
From 2008 to 2010, the 280 most profitable U.S. corporations sheltered half of their profits from taxes, thanks to tax subsidies totaling nearly $224 billion, according to a 2011 analysis by Citizens for Tax Justice. A dozen large companies, including Exxon-Mobil, Boeing, and General Electric, reaped $175 billion in profits, but their combined tax rate was negative 1.4 percent, thanks to $64 billion in subsidies from oil depletion allowances, write-offs from overseas profits, and other loopholes, according to the study.
These subsidies didn’t just come about by accident—at least 30 Fortune 500 firms pay their lobbyists more than they pay in taxes. Most small businesses can’t afford lobbyists, so it’s no surprise that the benefits of tax loopholes flow mainly to Wall Street, not Main Street.
Thanks to these loopholes, probably no major company pays the full federal corporate tax rate of 35 percent. The highest three-year average effective rate paid by any of the 12 large corporations in the Citizens for Tax Justice study was 14.2 percent—less than many middle class families.
That’s the kind of sweetheart deal most taxpayers—and most small businesses—can only dream about. We do, however, get to pick up the tab for these costly tax breaks. For starters, when corporations shirk billions of dollars in federal taxes, middle class taxpayers must bear more of the cost of national defense, healthcare, and other necessary programs.
Then there is the effect on state and local services, most notably education.
Most states mirror federal tax loopholes, and many states also provide tax subsidies for companies just to locate within their borders. Total state and local tax subsidies to business add up to about $70 billion a year. That windfall for big business comes at the expense of students. Over the past three years local school districts have cut 238,000 education jobs, which means more students crammed into larger classes and fewer opportunities for extra tutoring or after-school programs. Middle class families have also had to foot a larger share of the bill for higher education, as total state funding has declined 3.8 percent over the last five years.
Small businesses also pay a price for corporate handouts. Not only is the tax burden shifted to companies that can’t afford to game the system, but small businesses rely on public education to train skilled workers and teach them how to think critically. When Spencer Organ Company, Inc. was founded in 1995, many of the people who applied for jobs not only had basic reading and math skills—they also had been exposed to music education and had learned to use tools in shop classes, knowledge that is useful in the organ restoration business. Today, after years of curriculum cutbacks, most students have not had those opportunities, a shift that translates to higher training costs for this small business.
Our nation built the most prosperous economy in history during the 20th century, and public education was a foundation of that success. We all have a responsibility to provide similar opportunities for future generations to succeed, and our biggest corporations must do their fair share. After all, the same people who own stock in these companies also have a stake in America’s future.
Anonymous at 4:50 said, Would you rather pay $4.8bn to keep existing jobs and attract new investment to NJ, or pay $8.7bn for past promises?
Almost half of that 4.8 Billion is money NJ government employees contributed to the pension system. Are you suggesting we take their money and give it to business like yours so you stay in NJ? Maybe we could take half of your retirement account to attract businesses to NJ to increase jobs while we are at it….
Yea ! Where we gonna go?
Start that thread !
Fla.?
SC?
AZ.?
Come on, help a guy out here……
Please click or go to this link and help stop Politicians from “Double dipping” – https://www.change.org/p/govern-cuomo-andrew-cuomo-end-tax-funded-elected-officials-from-collecting-a-full-tax-funded-pension-benfits-while-collecting-full-tax-funded-salary-s?recruiter=388695696&utm_source=share_for_starters&utm_medium=copyLink
While they point fingers at workers – thousands of elected and appointed officials are double dipping. They retire between terms and then go back and collect full pay and pensions.