DECEMBER 27, 2015, 10:29 PM LAST UPDATED: MONDAY, DECEMBER 28, 2015, 7:23 AM
BY SALVADOR RIZZO
STATE HOUSE BUREAU |
THE RECORD
As Governor Christie heads into a crucial stretch in his campaign for the White House, back home, another pension dispute with multibillion-dollar consequences has reached a critical stage at the state Supreme Court.
A loss could spark another major budget crisis for Christie, potentially in the middle of a presidential campaign in which he often promotes his experience as a tested leader who can reform the United States’ fiscal problems and rein in $19 trillion in debt.
A group of retired prosecutors and public-worker unions is challenging a law Christie signed in 2011 that suspended yearly cost-of-living adjustments for retirees. When Christie tells voters in the rest of the country about having “fixed” New Jersey’s notoriously underfunded pension system and saved more than $100 billion over 30 years, he is referring largely to this cost-saving measure.
And the Supreme Court is being asked to strike it down as an unfair violation of workers’ rights.
Attorneys for all sides have now filed hundreds of pages of legal briefs. The court is expected to hear oral arguments next year and could issue its ruling just as Christie is competing in key primary states, or during the general-election season.
If they win, thousands of retirees — but perhaps not all of them — could begin to see bigger pension checks every year there is an increase in inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index.
https://www.northjersey.com/news/pension-challenge-may-cost-new-jersey-billions-1.1481189
Absolute bullshit…. It’s called bankruptcy.
The good people of NJ. Have had enough of the union thugs and this pension system that is nothing short of extortion. It ends here.
I loved playing Rich Uncle and Monopoly.
COLAS are dead and gone. The simple fact that public pensioners are still asking for them shows their pure greed. Nobody in the private sector gets defined benefit pensions and platinum health care coverage, and yet these union thugs think they deserve annual cost of living adjustments on top of pensions which they contributed less than 10% to, as well as virtually free healthcare benefits – all which kick in as early as their late 540s in some cases of retired public safety officials. Enough is enough, the greed must be stopped before these union goons destroy the state any further. The tax rates in NJ needed to pay for these obscene benefits are killing the state.
Pension hogs want cost of living adjustments? These public pensioners contributed less than 10% towards defined benefit pensions worth multi-millions in today’s dollars, and paid virtually nothing towards their platinum health benefits worth well over $25,000 a year for a family plan, and yet they still want more. They complain and complain about the raw deal they’re getting, and yet they get their pension checks every month and never have their health bills go unpaid… enough is enough.
People, stand up and tell your local & state elected officials that the pension greed has to stop…. now. All of the annual increases in your local and state taxes are going to pay for pension & health benefits for teachers and public safety officials, at the expense of everything else. These costs are crowding out the ability of municipalities to spend on other services to improve the quality of life for residents. It’s a black hole of greed and CBA sanctioned taxpayer theft, and more and more businesses and employers like Mercedes-Benz will leave the state so long as our taxes keep rising every year to pay for only higher benefits for the select few. This insanity must stop.
Get your check books out cry babies. You get the government you voted for……..
Or the government the unions bought and paid for…
cry babies?
Another example of unions run amok – more business will leave the state if these challenges by union thugs for cost of living adjustments and constitutional mandates to make quarterly pension payments even get heard by the state Supreme Court. $200 billion unfunded costs are thanks to years of mismanagement by Trenton in the face of union greed. None of that money has ever made it to Ridgewood residents in the way of property tax rebates, none. Yet we all keep paying our taxes. For what? So some BS artist like 9:43 am can call us “cry babies” while he sips mint juleps at Ridgewood CC.
Waaaa, Waaaaa, the big bad unions want more of my money for their pensions and health care. What morons you people are, the politicians are responsible for NJ being behind the pension and health care 8 ball. How you ask, simple, they took your tax dollars that were suppose to go to paying the pension obligations and health care costs and spent it on pet projects like Abbott district school funding, stem cell research, college sports, casinos in Atlantic city (which turned out to be a total loss when they went bankrupt, thanks Gov Christie) I could go on but I believe I made my point. So guess what, your taxes are going up, hope you like your elected politicians!.
excuse me the state has been run by thieves stealing form the pension funds since Tom Kean , Christie is way too late to make any meaningful change , and thus imminent bankruptcy
Hate to burst your bubble James but that ain’t happening. NJ is way too wealthy a state to go bankrupt. nice try though.
can we quote you on that ?
Sure, why not. Considering the median income of NJ is near 3 times the median income of the rest of the 47 states I’d say it’s a safe statement.
1128 hit the nail on the head. The other part is no meaningful change will happen unless incumbents are voted out and we see more independents instead of repubs and dems. If you look at the incumbency rates, people want to throw the bums out but not their respective bum representing them. Because of NJ’s status as a donor state to the rest of the country taxwise (you can thank your incumbents for that too), bankruptcy is wishful thinking and would not solve the problem and create a multitude of more problems.
Excellent point Paul Smith, without meaningful change things will not improve. Every time one of the current crop of politicians gets reelected they take that to mean they can keep fleecing the taxpayers and the dumb moronic taxpayer will still put them in office, and you know what Paul Smith, they are right!
11:28 just proved the point about union thuggery – saying, ‘What morons you people are, the politicians are responsible… So guess what, your taxes are going up”. “You people”? “Your taxes”? Hey, if the contracts that awarded those benefits weren’t negotiated in good faith, then they can be voided. Just because you promised yourselves the ability to retire in you early 50s on $100K annual defined benefit pensions with $25,000 annual health benefit plans doesn’t mean we can pay for them. If there’s no money, your benefits will be diminished. The sooner the better.
Anyone notice that the NJ state pension plan assets fell from $80 billion to $74 billion just in the past year after not making any investment returns? The outflows are because the pension plans are paying out over $6 BILLION a year in pension benefits. How on earth did we get in a situation where we are paying out that much just in pension checks a year? That’s outrageous, and the funds need to make 10% a year just to keep up with the pension checks because the benefits are too high. And the demands on the pension funds will only increase from here. The unions – and the politicians they paid for with union votes – have promised themselves too much in benefits. #unsustainable
#taxedtodeath, #unsustainable
12:30 pm, so tell me, if the unions have so much power over elections as you claim how the hell did Christie ever get reelected after screwing each and every public sector union member, huh? The fact is you don’t know what the hell your taking about.
Well, gee, 12:38 pm, if the people you elected had just properly funded the pensions as they were suppose to for the last 30 years this wouldn’t be an issue. I suggest you talk to them and find out what they intend to do about it. I suspect they will be looking for any great ideas you may have to solve this problem since you think you know so much about it. Maybe if we stop lining the pockets of people like you with taxpayer dollars we can start addressing this problem.
Close 12:28, but not quite. NJ actually pays out over $8B per annum in defined benefit public pension checks already and this will be over $10B in the next few years as a wave of retirees takes advantage of the 2011 pension reform law to retire in 2016 at a higher benefit rate (i.e. see all of the RPD retirements this year). The NJ pension plans had $74B in assets as of October this year. To pay out $10B per year on $74B in assets you need an annual return of 13.5% which is an unreasonable assumption, so state taxpayers will be left to make up any difference despite already paying the highest tax rates in the country. That’s just one of the reasons why we advise business not to invest in NJ. Why would any employer want to subject their employees to the inflated property prices and property taxes need to fund this public pension and health benefit largesse in NJ? There is far better housing availability and lower state & local taxes in states like GA. That’s why Mercedes decided to relocate there – it was a far better deal for their employees than what NJ offered in terms of housing affordability and taxes, and the state also offered a better package of tax incentives and investment credits than NJ. It was win-win for both the company and their employees. NJ just wasn’t competitive.
12:50, explain to me how you’ve been “screwed” with your $100K a year pension since you were 50 and free healthcare benefits worth over $25,000 a year? How is that you got screwed?
Oh right 12:59, you got “screwed” because you don’t get an annual cost of living adjustments anymore in line with the zero inflation we’ve had in Bergen county since 2008… must be tough living on a +$100K a year pension you contributed nothing towards before you retired in your early fifties along with free “Platinum” health benefits that not even current employees will get anymore from 2018… you got so screwed, right?
Wow, over $8B a year in annual pension checks sent to public sector retirees in NJ? That’s equivalent to 25% of the state’s annual budget, just on past promises for pensions and not even including health benefits. Outrageous! How the heck did our politicians agree to such unsustainable promises for the past all the while ignoring the future of the state?
Haven’t you heard 2:05 pm, Christie fixed everything way back in 2011 whith his landmark pension reform bill, maybe you haven’t heard about it…..It Provids New Jerseyans Over $120 Billion in Taxpayer Savings by 2041. This comprehensive set of reforms means critical savings for state and local governments and real property tax relief for New Jerseyans.
$79 Billion in State Contribution Savings: Over the next 30 years, the state pension contribution will be $148 billion, a projected savings of nearly $80 billion. Without reform, the state is projected to contribute $227 billion over the same period.
$43 Billion in Local Government Contribution Savings: Over the next 30 years, local government pension contributions will be $70 billion, a projected savings of nearly $43 billion. Without reform, local governments are projected to contribute $113 billion over the same period.
you can read more about it here…….https://www.state.nj.us/governor/news/news/552011/approved/20110628B.html