Weinberg to block reappointment over benefits cut

by: Jason Springer

Wed May 27, 2009 at 09:30:00 AM EDT

State Sen. Loretta Weinberg says she will block the reappointment of Stanley E. Wiklinski to the New Jersey Maritime Pilot and Docking Pilot Commission if he doesn't agree to a 10 percent cut in pay and forgo pension and health benefits for a year.

Weinberg made the same threat last week to four Bergen County Tax Board members that Governor Corzine had recently nominated for reappointment. Wiklinski, a real estate agent who lives in Old Tappan, has been a longtime member of the board, which oversees the pilots that guide commercial vessels in New York Harbor.

The Senator, along with Sen. Beck, has been voting against all tax board appointments which have come before the Judiciary Committee as well as other part time boards & commissions before the Senate for the last month. She echoed the sentiments of furloughed state workers who say that the appointees have been left untouched while they are the target:

Weinberg says she simply doesn't think taxpayers should be paying for benefits for part-time, political appointees - including positions held by prominent lobbyists - at a time when the state is furloughing workers, trimming benefits and cutting services.

"I know they work hard, they have to take educational requirements," she said. But she reasoned: "So they work for $18,000 and pay a few thousand dollars for the privilege of staying in the public employee pension plan."

In recent months, Weinberg has taken aim at pay and benefits of political appointees. She argues that recession-weary taxpayers should not be subsidizing benefits for appointees who work at part-time boards and commissions.

Unable to move a bill that would rein-in benefits, Weinberg told The Record last week that she intends to use her unilateral "Senatorial Courtesy" power to block home-county nominees, if necessary, to force small, mostly symbolic concessions.

This House urges members of boards, commissions, and authorities of the State, and of any political subdivision of the State, who provide service on a part-time basis that is equivalent to less than 25 hours of work per week and who receive a salary or a per diem payment for that service to waive, before June 30, 2009, the receipt of an amount equivalent to three months of the salary or per diem payment received annually.  The House also urges that such members reimburse the boards, commissions, and authorities for the portion, that represents that member's membership, of the 2009 contribution paid by the public entity to a State-administered retirement system.