Christie signs arbitration cap on raises for police, firefighter unions
JUNE 24, 2014, 9:56 AM LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, JUNE 24, 2014, 5:16 PM
BY MICHAEL LINHORST
STATE HO– USE BUREAU
THE RECORD
A cap on raises police and firefighter unions can get in certain contract disputes is now law – again.
The 2-percent limit on raises first became law in 2010 as part of the state’s effort to limit the growth of property taxes. The law expired this year at the end of March.
After weeks of negotiation, a bipartisan bill extending the cap emerged earlier this month. Governor Christie signed it at a ceremony outside the State House today, surrounded by top Democratic and Republican legislative leaders.
“The arbitration cap has worked,” Christie said, citing a slower growth in property taxes in recent years.
“We’re continuing what we started and renewing the bipartisan arbitration cap, which is going to continue to rein in the cost of government and stem the property tax crisis on behalf of New Jersey’s overburdened taxpayers,” said Christie, a Republican.
The cap prevents police or fire unions that settle contract disputes in interest arbitration from winning raises of more than 2 percent. The new law extends that cap until the end of 2017.
The bill passed unanimously in the Assembly and Senate earlier this month
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Can he also stop the blatant abuse of taxpayers on subsidized mortgages only for PFRS members, as well as the fraud of paying out accumulated leave at your final rate of compensation instead of at the rate when the leave was awarded ? How about stopping the practice of working for only 25 years, retiring at age 52, and then immediately drawing on a risk-free pension at 65% of the average of your final three years of comp ? This won’t fall to 60% for new pensioners until after 2016. Given longer lifespans, many recent retirees, who contributed less than 10% of their salary towards their pension over the past 25 years, will draw a pension for longer than they worked, all risk-free and guaranteed by taxpayers. That’s not including heavily subsidized healthcare and that six months of accumulated leave at your highest, final comp rate. And that comp rate, including 10% longetivity for soon to retire staff, is better than the median household income in Ridgewood ! It’s win-win for those with the deal, and lose-lose for the rest of us.
How about a cap on raises for employees of the governor? Oops. Too late. What a hypocrite.
I will be nice, the fat man got this one right.