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Senate passes Pension Reform Bills

by: Hopeful

Mon Feb 22, 2010 at 04:44:13 PM EST

All three pension/health-care-benefits reform bills (S-2 Text and S-2 Statement, S-3 Text and S-3 Statement, and Senate Bill S-4 Text and S-4 Statement) passed today by votes of 36-0. I understand Turner, Rice, Allen and Baroni are the four non-voters. Click on the "Text" link to see the full legislative language or the "Statement" link for a more comprehensible summary. S-2 limits new enrollment in the pension system to full-time employees working at least 35 hours a week. Part-time employees making $5000 are eligible for a Defined Contribution Retirement Program, i.e. something like a 401(k). Benefits for future participants also go back to the old 1/60 formula. If you have multiple jobs, only the best counts towards the pension. Under S-3, current employees will have to contribute 1.5% of their salary to their health benefits, and newly hired employees will have to contribute 1.5% of their pension when they retire. S-4 limits sick leave payouts, you'll remember the recent outrages over some very large payouts.

Note that the most interesting reforms apply to future participants in the pension system, if you're already in the system you evade most of these reforms.

With 36-0 votes, we need to include both Republican and Democratic quotes, so here goes:

"These reforms are necessary to restore New Jersey's long-term fiscal footing and return sanity to a pension and benefits system that was allowed to spiral out of control," said Senate President Stephen M. Sweeney (D-Gloucester/Cumberland/Salem). "Without these changes, the state would soon have no option but to break its promise to career public servants."
"New Jersey's pension system is on life support," said Senate Republican Leader Thomas Kean (R-Union/Essex/Morris/Somerset). "If we don't act now, it will be too late to avoid a crisis that would be costly to both taxpayers and government employees who depend on the system. These are common-sense reforms that have bipartisan support."

One imagines that future State Senators will have to get their health benefits from their full-time job, unless there is a loophole somewhere.

Hopeful :: Senate passes Pension Reform Bills

Tags: benefits, pension, pensions reform, health care, budget, (All Tags)

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Senate passes Pension Reform Bills | 6 comments

here's a question (4.00 / 1)

Should elected officials (who are almost all part-time) get pensions or health benefits?

Frank LoBiondo Record and Jon Runyan Watch

by: Hopeful @ Mon Feb 22, 2010 at 21:52:07 PM UTC

by: you @ soon

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No (4.00 / 1)

very rarely do part-timers get any benefits, and if they do, they are pro-rated.

by: Thurman Hart @ Mon Feb 22, 2010 at 22:53:25 PM UTC

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by: you @ soon

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Clear Message sent to CWA Leaders (4.00 / 1)

The 36-0 vote should send a message to the CWA leadership that their " let's rumble" campaign was a complete failure.It was an embarrasment. They made their rank and file look foolish.

The membership understood that all of the items that were contained in these Bills were issues that the leadership told them TO ACCEPT in the last contract!

CWA State Workers are already working under these rules. Now they were supposed to call their Legislators and oppose them?

The effort by the CWA leadership to "turn back the clock and get tough" was comical.

Is there a Union leadership group inside the State who has less crediblity then the CWA leadership group? 36-0 ? It does not get worse than that !

When your membership ignores you completely don't complain later that you get no respect from the public or elected officials.

by: firstamend07 @ Tue Feb 23, 2010 at 01:32:21 AM UTC

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Here's my question... (0.00 / 0)

with 36-0 support, and the problem having been identified serveral times (benefits review task force) among others...

Why now?

I mean... why not in the past four years?

Maybe someone in the know can shed some more light.... I'm thinking either Gov. Corzine was not quite the reformer we thought he tried to be... or Mr. Codey and Mr. Roberts are the champions of status quo I believed them to be...

Thoughts?

"Where ever you go, there you are." - Buckaroo Bonzai

by: William Weber (WjcW) @ Tue Feb 23, 2010 at 22:34:00 PM UTC

by: you @ soon

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I'd like to know too (0.00 / 0)

It should have happened.

Except, in the defense of Democrats, I believe that Corzine did go out and get most state employees to pay 1.5%, and so he did achieve the main part of this. Nearly everything else applies to new employees so pays off, if at all, far in the future. Perhaps it was reasonable to negotiate this with state employees before going after municipal employees.

Frank LoBiondo Record and Jon Runyan Watch

by: Hopeful @ Tue Feb 23, 2010 at 23:41:19 PM UTC

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by: you @ soon

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I'm not trying... (0.00 / 0)

to make it a partisan issue...

Obviously, with 36-0, there was some support behind these measures for some time....

I'm more interested in knowing if Codey/Roberts stopped Corzine...or if Corzine stopped Codey/Roberts...

"Where ever you go, there you are." - Buckaroo Bonzai

by: William Weber (WjcW) @ Wed Feb 24, 2010 at 15:15:43 PM UTC

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