the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Glassboro NJ, Speaking at a policy forum last night, Senate President Steve Sweeney talked about the need to confront the state’s mounting fiscal problems and warned that New Jersey won’t be able to make critical investments in education, transportation, higher education and social services unless it enacts major structural reforms to address the looming budget crisis fueled by runaway pension and benefit costs.
At the public forum, held at Rowan University in Glassboro, Senator Sweeney warned that New Jersey is facing a dire fiscal crisis and laid out a series of solutions developed by the bipartisan Economic and Fiscal Policy Workgroup of economists, academics and fiscal policy experts to address the problem.
The session was hosted by Dr. Ali Houshmand, the President of Rowan University, and Ben Dworkin, the Director of the Rowan Institute for Public Policy & Citizenship Office.
“We have to be willing to confront the reality of the fiscal problems we face and realize the need for structural reforms,” said Senator Sweeney (D-Gloucester/Salem/Cumberland). “If we don’t fix the built-in problems we will be facing a multi-billion-dollar deficit in the years ahead. That will cripple our ability to invest in future priorities and address current needs, such as expanding preschool, investing in our universities, fully funding state aid to local school districts, or providing social services.”
“We need to make our state more affordable – not less affordable – for our hard-working middle-class families, for new college graduates and millennials deciding where they are going to live, and for senior citizens trying to decide whether they can afford to stay,” the Senate President said.
“We welcome the open discussion on these issues that are so important to the state’s future, including the role of higher education,” said. Dr. Houshmand. “Rowan University is proud to participate in a public forum of relevance and consequence.”
Many of the recommendations in the group’s Path to Progress report could make New Jersey both more competitive and more affordable.
“There exists the potential for savings with initiatives, such as K-12 regionalization, increased use of shared services at both the county and municipal level, and shifting the cost of Extraordinary Special Education from the local to the state level,” said Senator Sweeney. “If there are recommendations that can lead to real property tax reform to ease the burden on New Jerseyans, it is a discussion that must take place.”
Senator Sweeney said the new hybrid pension system recommended by the Economic and Fiscal Policy Workgroup is not a new idea; 12 states, including Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Ohio, have already adopted hybrid systems. The plan would fully preserve the existing pension system for teachers and state, county and municipal employees with five years of service.
And this is coming from an iron workers union guy. Just how bad is it?
shows you how bad things really are
Actually probably best at this point to do nothing – or make it even worse like Murphy is doing – so the state can file for bankruptcy by 2027 when the public pension funds run out of money and the state budget can’t afford to “pay as we go” on healthcare for all of the under-65 public sector retirees and their families on platinum health plans. This gang has pigged out bigly, and the only way to put NJ back on solid ground financially is to declare bankruptcy and diminish benefits for teachers & school administrators, police, fire, judges, etc.
you wont make it till 2027 , not even close
Why is this not already happening? What’s the problem in implementing Sweenys suggestions?
Phil Murphy
And the public sector unions trying to get their benefits constitutionally guaranteed before the bankruptcy. They are piiiiiiggggsss ???????
Getting union benefits constitutionally guaranteed will be meaningless when the checking account is empty. Until we can restructure that obligation the problem won’t go away.
Murphy won’t budge given his ties with NJEA. Just start by trimming the Cadillac health plans. Everyone has been paying more for their health insurance premiums and co-pays. Employers pay more too. Taxpayers are tapped out. Public employees have no clue and their salaries are no longer lower than private sector workers. The formula for computing pension payouts based on their last several years earnings (usually the highest of their careers and includes as much OT as they can wrangle) is also unfair. Pension should be calculated based on their entire working years’ earnings. Too much abuse. Part timers should not be eligible for pensions. The system is out of control!
You could have posted that ten years ago and it would have been as valid then as it is today! Look at the accumulated leave policy in the CBAs we have with our greedy police & fire unions. They get paid out on 50% of accumulated leave upon retirement at their HIGHEST final rate of compensation, not the rate at which the leave was originally awarded. Total scam. They claim they don’t get social security, but the Village currently has a $6.2 million unfunded accumulated leave liability based on 17,254.61 days of accumulated absences racked up by public safety employees. The payouts average over $750,000 per retiree (avg PFRS retirement age with full pension and platinum health benefits is 52), which is way more than any social security benefit after age 65. The Council has an opportunity to challenge this through negotiations for new union contracts, but they are conflicted with children on the RPD and RFD.