Christie pension commission warns of shortfalls
The panel Governor Christie commissioned to develop solutions to fix the state’s underfunded public employee pension and health benefits systems warned Thursday that changes must be made. In a preliminary report, the panel detailed the causes of the shortfall but offered no specific recommendations for fixing the problem. (Hayes/The Bergen Record)
https://www.northjersey.com/
Christie is no better than past administrations when it comes to not funding state pensions and using the money else where.
Even with the pension under funding to use the money elsewhere, we still have the highest state income + local property taxes, and it looks like our cheap gasoline tax will rise b y 15-20 cents a gallon, too. On top of this, highway tolls in NJ have doubled since 2008, and train & bus commuter tax breaks have been cut from $254/month to only $130…. even with all of this revenue, we still can’t fund our public sector pension plan. Makes you shudder to think just how high taxes have to go to pay the piper!?!
And our taxes are going to go even higher since Taxpayers subsidized Christie campaign contributors who got nice contracts to manage NJ pension funds.
Christie Shifted Pension Cash To High Risk Funds, Cost Taxpayers $3.8 Billion
https://www.ibtimes.com/gov-christie-shifted-pension-cash-wall-street-costing-new-jersey-taxpayers-38-billion-1667622
Gov. Chris Christie’s administration openly acknowledged that more New Jersey taxpayer dollars were going to land in the coffers of major financial institutions. It was 2010, and Christie had just installed a longtime private equity executive, Robert Grady, to manage the state’s pension money. Grady promoted a plan to put more of those funds into riskier investments managed by Wall Street firms. Though this would entail higher fees, Grady said the strategy would “maximize returns while appropriately managing risk.”
Four years later, New Jersey has secured only half the promised results. The state has sent more pension money to big-name Wall Street firms like Blackstone, Third Point, Omega Advisors, Elliott Associates and Grady’s old firm, The Carlyle Group. Additionally, the amount of fees the state pays financial managers has more than tripled since Christie assumed office. New Jersey is now one of America’s largest investors in hedge funds.
New Jersey is now paying a quarter-billion dollars in additional annual fees to Wall Street firms — many of whose employees have financially supported Republican groups backing Christie’s reelection campaign.
And he want to be President.
Nice for pension fund managers who are lining their pockets with tax payer dollars!
Not so nice for the Taxpayer who pays the bills!
Of course, pension benefits are probably also too generous and public sector workers probably don’t contribute enough towards their pensions, so maybe raising the contribution amounts in the next CBAs makes sense, too. This cannot just be another problem completely solved by higher taxes, we’re already taxed higher than any other state in terms of state income + local property taxes !
And we all know where most of our property taxes go……the schools! Time to reign in the Teachers salaries and benefits !
all public sector workers, including teachers, need to contribute more of their wages towards pensions (it’s their money anyway) and health care costs, taxpayers can’t just have unlimited liability
Let Christie force the towns that have deferred their payments to buck up and there should be plenty!