Category: Uncategorized

If the matter was rejected by NJ’s Supreme Court, it’s highly unlikely that The Federal Supreme Court would go the other way. The SCOTUS tends to lean slightly more to the right than their NJ colleagues. There’s also massive nationwide ramifications for the SCOTUS to consider here, as this same issue applies throughout the country. Many States and local Governments are operating at near bankruptcy. The fat lady is doing voice scales in her dressing room.

Yep, we need some real longer-term, structural change in NJ govt spending. A few ideas being thrown around include open bidding NJ state road & infrastructure projects to private sector firms to cut out union & Mafioso graft, increased pension contributions and health insurance premiums paid by state & municipal employees and retirees for health. Asking state & municipal workers to roll back many of the pension enhancements they’ve been given since the 1990s under Florio and Whitman, i.e. maximum pensionable income should be capped like California at $110K, with pensions at 50% of that, ie $55K, in-line with current PFRS avg $57K. New employees should be moved to 401(k) style defined contribution plans, not defined benefit anymore so that politicians can no longer interfere in pension funding issues and raid the funds for Union pet projects like Xanadu, and bye-bye to accumulated leave payouts upon retirement at up to six months of avg final comp rate – “use it or lose it”. Taxes are probably going up too if all of these concessions are made, the sooner the better.

Probably worth looking at, here’s the road map to putting state finances on a more sustainable path now that Christie can get on with it https://www.state.nj.us/treasury/pdf/FinalFebruaryCommissionReport.pdf

Read the NJ Supreme Court’s full pen/ben decision here

In a long-awaited decision today that comes as a boon to Gov. Chris Christie and a blow public sector unions, the state’s Supreme Court ruled that the Republican’s administration does not have to make a slated contribution to a beleaguered pension and benefit system, striking down an earlier lower court decision that ruled the opposite.

In the 115 page document, Justice Jaynee LaVecchia wrote on behalf of the majority that the court cannot be a mediator of fiscal troubles “in place of the political branches.”   (Brush/PolitickerNJ)

Read the NJ Supreme Court’s full pen/ben decision here | New Jersey News, Politics, Opinion, and Analysis

New Jersey’s Top Court Rules Christie Can Skip Pension Payments

New Jersey’s highest court ruled on Tuesday that Gov. Chris Christie could skip the pension payments he promised to make in the signature law of his tenure, averting a huge fiscal crisis just weeks before the state closes its books for the year.  (Zernike/The New York Times)

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/10/nyregion/christie-wont-be-forced-to-make-pension-payments.html?_r=0