Sweeney pushes forcing bigger N.J. pension payments by changing constitution
State Sen. President Stephen Sweeney introduced legislation Monday that would cement state officials’ promises to fund government workers’ pensions in the New Jersey constitution. Samantha Marcus, NJ.com Read more
New Jersey voter turnout reaches a new low
The percentage of registered New Jersey voters who cast a ballot in this year’s general election tumbled to the lowest level in more than nine decades. Associated Press Read more
ELEC: PAC Dollars Spurred Elections Spending to Over $30 Million
Independent special interest spending drove the cost of this year’s legislative general election above $30 million, according to this morning’s new 2015 elections analysis of disclosure reports by the Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC). The spending, which still is considered preliminary, already has established a record high for a year with just Assembly members running. Politicker Staff, PolitickerNJ Read more
Where did the money go in N.J. Assembly races?
Independent committees spent more than $2 million in the three districts where Democrats picked up four seats in last month’s state Assembly election that awarded the party its largest majority in the lower chamber since 1979. Samantha Marcus, NJ.com Read more
Sweeney, O’Toole Discuss Bipartisanship in Newark
It seems that South Jersey-based Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-3) is continuing his charm offensive in the northern part of the state as he continues to angle for a likely 2017 gubernatorial run. Today, Sweeney joined Republican Senator Kevin O’Toole (R-40) for an event at Newark’s North Ward Center to honor O’Toole for his dedication to the mission of the center: to help underserved populations. Alyana Alfaro, PolitickerNJ Read more
As Garden State residents prepare for winter driving conditions, they’re still likely to encounter roads and bridges in continued need of repair, having been ravaged by time, the elements, and insufficient funding. One proposal for addressing our state’s infrastructure needs involves raising the gas tax, which is currently among the lowest in the nation (14.5 cents per gallon). The most recent statewide survey of adults from Fairleigh Dickinson University’s PublicMind finds that support for raising the gas tax has increased slightly since January, but so too have doubts that any money raised would be used for its intended purpose. Politicker Staff, PolitickerNJRead more
NJ Poll: Voters Tell Legislators To Keep Their Hands Off The Gas Tax
November 14, 2015 11:45 AM By David Madden
HAMDEN, CT (CBS) – With the general election now in the rear view mirror, New Jersey politicians are expected to take up a number of unpopular issues.
Tops on that list is a bid to increase the state’s gasoline tax. A new poll of Garden State voters suggests drivers want that levy left alone.
The Quinnipiac poll back in April found half of those surveyed might support an increase to help pay for road repair and such. That was the first time in eleven years the number got that high, according to pollster Mickey Carroll.
This latest poll, taken after the November Third general election, showed that support was short lived.
“People don’t like it 62 to 35,” Carroll told KYW Newsradio. “But legislators who have to decide what to do with a nearly bankrupt Transportation Trust Fund are said to be going for it.”
BOE Meets on November 16 at 7:30 p.m.
The Ridgewood Board of Education will hold a Regular Public Meeting on Monday, November 16, 2015, at 7:30 p.m.
Click here to view the minutes of the October 19, 2015 Regular Public Meeting.
11.03.15: Board of Education Issues Statement on Contract Negotiations
Click here to read a November 2, 2015 statement by the Ridgewood Board of Education, “Negotiations Status Report.”
REA members did not listen to BOE
NOVEMBER 13, 2015 LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2015, 12:31 AM
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
Print
REA members did not listen to BOE
To the Editor:
As a regular attendee of the Board of Education meetings of late, I would like to express one fact that was missing from last week’s article that appeared on your front page (“Fact-finder returns in February,” Nov. 6, page A-1).
Your staff writer accurately reported the following: “… opening remarks were made; a couple of presentations took place; and then public comments opened up, with various members of the REA coming to the microphone to have their say.”
He then continued with, “After the public comments, Sheila Brogan, president of the board, read from a prepared statement, explaining that the talks between the REA and BOE had slowed once again…”
What your reporter failed to include in his article is that immediately after the REA chief negotiator made her comments at the microphone, all the REA members present exited the building. Ms. Brogan’s reading of the prepared statement was made to an intimate group of us after the throng of REA members left. The REA members did not even grant to a volunteer elected official, to whom they are asking a lot, the courtesy of listening to her. The board listened to them, but I can only guess that the REA felt not compelled to show the decency of listening in return.
Pick your statement: “Actions speak louder than words” or “Adults are to be role models for the younger people.”
Bob Hutton
Ridgewood
Congressman Frank Pallone: Fifteen-Dollar Minimum Wage Is Critical for Economic Growth
$40 hamburger in your future ?
Where is the Ridgewood Chamber of Commerce ?
On the eve of the national day of action for the “Fight for Fifteen” movement aimed at increasing the minimum wage to $15 per hour, Congressman Frank Pallone (D-6) and the healthcare-focused SEIU union held a phone in tele-townhall to discuss why they believe the proposed hike is a critical one. Currently the minimum wage in New Jersey sits at $8.38 per hour. Alyana Alfaro, PolitickerNJ Read more
The 7 Most Dangerous Myths About A $15 Minimum Wage
https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2015/08/04/the-7-most-dangerous-myths-about-a-15-minimum-wage/
Seattle sees fallout from $15 minimum wage, as other cities follow suit
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/07/22/seattle-sees-fallout-from-15-minimum-wage-as-other-cities-follow-suit/
We Are Seeing The Effects Of Seattle’s $15 An Hour Minimum Wage
Tim Worstall
Possibly the best starting point of this argument is this rather newer post here.
Some time back I wrote a piece entitled “We can predict the effects of Seattle’s $15 an hour minimum wage.” It’s here. And without going into boring detail it essentially said that we’d see what we would expect to see from a rise in the price of something, that is a fall in the demand for it. Ever since I’ve had comments from people insisting that human labor just doesn’t work that way. That if wages rise then actually more people are going to get employed. An example came in only this morning:
Between January and December of 2014, while Seatac’s business owners (and their customers) were absorbing the cost of paying minimum wage employees $15, unemployment decreased 17.46%, falling from 6.3% to 5.2%. It turns out that you CAN increase the minimum wage (even in large increments) and increase overall employment at the same time.
Bipartisan Gas-Tax Deal Could Fund Transportation
Serious conversations about raising New Jersey’s gas tax to head off a looming transportation-funding crisis were put on hold earlier this year, so lawmakers could focus on the Assembly elections that were just held in all 40 legislative districts earlier this week. But now with those contests in the rearview mirror, the talk in Trenton has shifted back to transportation. John Reitmeyer, NJSpotlight Read more
Posted by Matt Rooney On November 06, 2015 7 Comments
By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog
If you STILL don’t know or understand why New Jersey is almost irreparably screwed up, and a strengthened Democrat legislative majority is only going to make it worse, all you need to do is check out this quote from a celebratory SpeakerVince Prieto over on NJ.com.
He’s moving full-steam-ahead on the gas tax hike after Tuesday’s big win and isn’t ready to listen to any proposals that don’t raise taxes:
You can’t have something that’s revenue neutral,” Prieto said. “How are you going to fix the roads and then take the money from somewhere else? That is a ridiculous statement.”
There you have it, Save Jerseyans.
Translated: “The problem with Trenton isn’t Trenton, but that the people we “serve” aren’t sending us enough money.”
The man has balls, I’ll grant him that much. He also hates math. Study after study recognizes New Jersey as the worst (orsecond to worst) state for taxes in the entire country, a quantifiable fact further substantiated by a no-less-quantifiable herd of taxpayers fleeing New Jersey for other states. There’s a several mile traffic jam of moving vans heading west on I-80! And South on I-95. And Vince is worried about where we’re going to get the money for roads which no one can afford to drive…
So somehow, magically, we’re going to make New Jersey better for businesses, and families, by making it less affordable to live (and drive) here. #PrietoLogic! Which is apparently logic neutral.
And he can’t find ANYTHING he’d like to cut from the budget. Nothing. Not in a state notorious for no-show jobs, pension abuse, redundant departments, ponderous layers of bureaucracy and a school funding formula – where most of your property tax increase go – that spends $20k+ on urban education, per child, with nothing to show for it.
Look: everyone agrees the roads need to fixed. But we’veproposed alternatives to higher taxes including reducing the cost of maintaining our roads (which is – surprise! – also the highest in the nation) because, unlike the Speaker’s Assembly caucus, our Garden State businesses and families have no choice but to cut their budgets when times are tough. No cable next month! Less eating out. Less shifts at the shop. Etc. and so on.
Prieto doesn’t care. ‘Cause he doesn’t get it. The few Democrats who do get it are too afraid – or bought off – by the Super PAC backers to care. Does anyone honestly believe the Dems who just won upsets riding NJEA Super PAC cash to victoryare now going to be independent of the public sector unions?
https://savejersey.com/2015/11/prieto-assembly-democrat-new-jersey-gas-tax/
By Timothy Cama – 11/06/15 12:51 PM EST
The Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA) is one of the few labor unions that broke with the majority of Democrats and supported the project, which Obama rejected Friday after a seven-year review.
“We are dismayed and disgusted that the President has once again thrown the members of LIUNA, and other hard-working, blue-collar workers under the bus of his vaunted ‘legacy,’ while doing little or nothing to make a real difference in global climate change,” Terry O’Sullivan, the union’s general president, said in a statement. “His actions are shameful.”
The group’s statement cited a State Department report that Keystone could reduce greenhouse gas emissions when compared with oil transportation by rail.
“But facts apparently mean as little to the president as the construction jobs he repeatedly derided as insignificant because they are ‘temporary,’ ” O’Sullivan said. “Ironically, the very temporary nature of the president’s own job seems to be fueling a legacy of doing permanent harm to middle- and working class families.”
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/259395-union-obama-threw-workers-under-the-bus
NOVEMBER 6, 2015 LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2015, 12:31 AM
BY MATTHEW SCHNEIDER
STAFF WRITER |
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
Despite recent optimism that contract discussions between the Ridgewood Board of Education (BOE) and Ridgewood Education Association (REA) could conclude in the near future, the process seems to have ground to a halt once again.
This past week’s BOE meeting featured a series of events that have become standard: opening remarks were made; a couple of presentations took place; and then public comments opened up, with various members of the REA coming to the microphone to have their say. While not all of the comments were related to the negotiations, the majority were.
After the public comments, Sheila Brogan, president of the board, read from a prepared statement, explaining that the talks between the REA and BOE had slowed once again, and that even with the state-appointed mediator, no agreement could be hammered out.
“As has been the case since the parties’ first meeting back in February 2015, when the association declared an impasse, the main issues have been negotiating the levels of employee share of health care premiums, the cost of premium and type of plan and fair salary increases while staying within what the board feels the taxpayers can support,” Brogan said.
https://www.northjersey.com/news/education/fact-finder-returns-in-february-1.1449843
All of the changes contained in the 2011 law that haven’t already taken effect will be fully implemented in just over 1 year. This law wasn’t designed to show a substantial immediate savings. It was designed to implement changes over a period of years and once ALL of those gradual changes were completed the impact of those changes going forward would have a positive effect on the states financial condition. Immediate solutions for long term problems, are just not reasonable or possible.
The full story on the Chapter 78, P.L. 2011 pension reforms… the problems are unfortunately still very much with us. Here are the facts: cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) were suspended for current and future retirees and beneficiaries from July 2011, but there’s been no inflation in NJ since 2008, so this is not an issue. The increases in employee contribution rates towards their own pensions are only gradual: from 5.5% to 6.5% plus an additional 1% phased-in over 7 years through 2019 for TPAF and PERS; from 3% to 12% for JRS phased-in over seven years; from 8.5% to 10% for PFRS members; and, from 7.5% to 9% for SPRS members. Given the “special” retirement option available only to PFRS members, who can retire after 20-25 years and earn more from their defined benefit pensions for life in retirement then they earned in compensation while serving, they should be contributing more than 10%. As for the increased health benefit contributions, employees subject to any collective negotiations agreement in effect on the effective date of the law in July 2011, i.e. CBAs, that had an expiration date on or after the expiration of the health care contribution provisions of the law, haven’t been subject to the new higher contribution rates yet. In Ridgewood, only Fire is now paying a higher contribution amount, while the PBA and the REA haven’t yet agreed to new CBAs that would trigger higher health benefit contribution rates… so Ridgewood taxpayers have yet to see much, if any benefit from the pension reforms of 2011.
Who raised the big bucks in the N.J. Assembly races
Outside money flowed into New Jersey Assembly races at a record rate leading up toTuesday’s election. Samantha Marcus, NJ.com Read more
General Majority, under the name Fund for Jobs Growth and Security, spent more than $8 million to help elect Democrats, according to ELEC.
Republican candidates John Mitchell, Ken Tyburczy and Daisy Ortiz-Berger
Democrats have raised nearly seven times more than GOP challengers in Bergen Freeholder race
OCTOBER 30, 2015, 7:23 PM LAST UPDATED: SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2015, 2:15 PM
BY JOHN C. ENSSLIN
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
As the race for three seats on the Bergen County Board of Freeholders winds down, campaign spending reports show that the three Democratic incumbents have raised nearly seven times more than their Republican challengers.
Democratic Freeholders Steve Tanelli, Tracy Zur and Thomas Sullivan had raised about $434,654 according to reports released on Thursday by the state Election Law Enforcement Commission.
Republican candidates John Mitchell, Ken Tyburczy and Daisy Ortiz-Berger had raised about $62,132 during the same period.
Democrats currently hold a 5-2 majority on the board. Republicans would have to sweep all three seats to regain control.
The reports show that Sullivan, president of Local 164 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, was the top fund-raiser among all the freeholder candidates.
His individual campaign reported $126,210 in contributions, many from labor unions such as the New Jersey Building and Construction Trades Council, which contributed $1,500.
Zur, a former municipal judge from Franklin Lakes, raised $98,430 and Tanelli, a former North Arlington councilman, raised $24,532.
The New Jersey Education Association has been the driving force behind the General Majority PAC’s roughly $2 million campaign effort on behalf of Assembly candidates in the first and second legislative districts, contributing $3 million to the independent group. JT Aregood, PolitickerNJ Read more
