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PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER N.J. lawmakers reach accord on budget TRENTON - Lawmakers hammered out an agreement on benefits for new government employees late last night, clearing the way for a vote on the state budget in both houses of the Legislature on Monday. > "We've reached an agreement with the Assembly," said Sen. Barbara Buono (D., Middlesex). "It's a victory for the taxpayers."
THE RECORD State legislators add bond issue for public schools
New Jersey legislators – capping months of debate Friday over a state budget that would cut spending by millions – added $1.4 billion to a $2.5 billion bond issue for building public schools.
THE RECORD Backroom budget brokering at the Statehouse
Friday, June 20, 2008
N.J. lawmakers reach accord on budget
By Adrienne Lu and Jonathan Tamari
Inquirer Trenton Bureau
TRENTON - Lawmakers hammered out an agreement on benefits for new government employees late last night, clearing the way for a vote on the state budget in both houses of the Legislature on Monday.
> "We've reached an agreement with the Assembly," said Sen. Barbara Buono (D., Middlesex). "It's a victory for the taxpayers."
> The Assembly and Senate budget committees approved the final pieces of legislation late last night.
> The resolution ended a tense few days of behind-the-scenes negotiations, and means the state should be able to avoid a government shutdown like the one that happened during the budget stalemate two years ago.
> If both the Assembly and the Senate sign off on the budget Monday, as expected, Gov. Corzine would have a week to review the $32.9 billion spending plan before the July 1 state constitutional deadline.
> Senate leaders said the final package of benefits changes would save taxpayers an estimated $300 million over 15 years.
> The unions, which opposed any changes to pensions and other benefits, were able to hold off some of the most significant changes proposed.
> Key Democratic lawmakers, led by Buono, who chairs the Senate budget committee, and Senate Majority Leader Stephen M. Sweeney (D., Gloucester), had pushed for a series of changes to the state pension and benefits plan. Most of the changes would not affect current employees, only newly hired ones.
> The changes would include raising the retirement age for public employees from 60 to 62 and setting a higher salary threshold to qualify for pensions. Most government workers and educators will now have to earn $7,500 a year to be eligible for a pension. Public employees would also lose one holiday, Lincoln's Birthday, out of 13 when the current contract expires.
> Unions opposed to changes packed committee hearings in the Capitol and picketed lawmakers' district offices yesterday. Labor leaders said it was unfair to change benefits a year after signing a new contract that included concessions on pensions and health care.
> "Everything that's in this legislation tramples on the collectively bargained principles" of the contract, said Robert Master, regional political director for the Communications Workers of America.
> The unions did fight off proposals that would have barred part-time workers from joining the state health plan, changed pension calculations in a way that would have cut the benefits for many workers, and required employees with more than one public job to choose only one in calculating their pensions.
> Buono and Sweeney had said their support of the budget would be contingent upon approval of the benefits changes. They argued the changes would help pay for the early-retirement program the Corzine administration is pushing, which would trim the state workforce by 2,000 employees and save an estimated $91 million.
> "It's meaningful reform," Sweeney said.
> Corzine has expressed concerns about some of the proposed changes, including increasing the retirement age, although he said he may agree to some.
> "I want to see the end results," he said. "There are things that I'm prepared to accept."
> The other key issue that had remained unresolved, whether the state should borrow $3.9 billion for school construction, was solved earlier in the day when the Senate and Assembly budget committees advanced the plan.
> Lawmakers in the budget committees of both houses voted along party lines on the issue, with Democrats in favor of borrowing the money.
> Democrats argued that the money would help pay for much-needed new schools that were supposed to already have been built. Republicans argued that voters should decide the issue in a referendum, as called for in the state constitution.
State legislators add bond issue for public schools
Friday, June 20, 2008
BY JOHN REITMEYER AND ELISE YOUNG
TRENTON BUREAU
New Jersey legislators – capping months of debate Friday over a state budget that would cut spending by millions – added $1.4 billion to a $2.5 billion bond issue for building public schools.
The legislation, now swelled to nearly $4 billion, would deliver more spending power to the successor of the Schools Construction Corp., which blew through $8.6 billion to replace a decrepit school infrastructure. In the process, it generated investigations into waste and fraud.
The new borrowing would occur without voter consent, a point that Republican senators unsuccessfully argued during committee hearings.
“I’m just trying to understand how I can explain to the folks I represent how this can get through without voter approval,” said Sen. Kevin O’Toole, R-Cedar Grove.
And it would come despite Governor Corzine’s talk of out-of-control debt, adding to the more than $32 billion in state borrowing already on the books.
Approval for the borrowing came during marathon hearings of the Assembly and Senate budget committees, which also approved a compromise bills on pension and health-benefit reforms, in addition to the $33 billion budget.
A final vote on the $33 billion budget is scheduled for Monday. With the governor’s signature in place, the law would be adopted fully a week under deadline — in marked contrast to the standoff that caused the historic government shutdown two years ago.
Committee members in both houses worked for more than four hours on a compromise to a package of pension and health-benefit reforms for public workers. What began as seven bills became one measure, affecting only new hires.
“The state pension and health benefits network was designed for rank-and-file public employees,” said Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts, D-Camden. “Now is the time to ensure that the system works for them and cannot be gamed and drained by the politically well-connected.”
Supporters had said the reforms would save the state $300 million over 15 years. But the proposals infuriated the New Jersey Education Association, the Communication Workers of America and other unions.
Not surviving was an attempt to raise the pension calculation to five years, from three years, a victory for union members who had protested outside the State House and lawmakers’ offices this week.
In another boost for the unions, the committee backed off an attempt to enforce a 35-hour work week to qualify for a pension. The minimum week instead would be 20 hours, and anyone found committing fraud to get a pension would be subject to criminal punishment.
Organized labor will have much to criticize, however.
State workers and teachers would have to make a minimum $7,500 a year to qualify for pension and health benefits, an increase from $3,500 for state employees and $7,000 for teachers.
The panels also agreed to raise the retirement age, to 62 from 60. And they revoked Lincoln's birthday as a paid holiday, effective when the current contract expires. That means state workers would have a dozen such days off a year, instead of 13, in addition to vacation and sick time.
Committee members compromised on a measure not to allow out-of-state public service count toward a pension. That time would qualify a worker for a pension, but not for health benefits.
The school construction legislation grew from the $2.5 billion originally proposed in the Assembly for projects in just the state’s neediest districts to $3.9 billion approved by both house’s budget committees Friday afternoon.
The additions will would an extra $400 million in construction in needy districts and $1 billion in better-off communities.
Republicans said they had a hard time accepting the increase in the school construction bond issue, especially because it runs counter to bipartisan legislation, backed by Corzine, that in November will ask voters to approve a measure giving them final say on all state borrowing.
When O’Toole expressed his misgivings, Sen. Ron Rice, D-Essex, told O’Toole that he should tell his constituents about the depth of the needs in such places as Newark’s Ironbound, whose schools date to the 1800s.
“This is a bill for children — children who cannot vote in New Jersey,” he said.
In the Assembly committee, Vice Chair Gary Schaer, D-Passaic, said the state has a moral obligation to fix schools. Students educated in good facilities, he suggested, one day could find cures for cancer and other diseases.
By law, the governor must sign a balanced budget by July 1.
E-mail: reitmeyer@northjersey.com
Backroom budget brokering at the Statehouse
Friday, June 20, 2008
Last updated: Friday June 20, 2008, EDT 3:24 PM
BY JOHN REITMEYER
STAFF WRITER
Legislators are back in Trenton, but there’s not much going on – at least in public.
For now the action is behind closed doors as lawmakers try to work a deal on the proposed $33 billion budget, a package of pension reforms and a plan to spend $3.5 billion on building more public schools.
The benefits reform bills aren’t directly related to the budget, although Governor Corzine has called for an early retirement program. The reforms were proposed in part to help ease worries about the cost of that program and to reduce expenses to the state’s already overburdened pension and health benefits funds.
The school construction money is part of a court order calling for $2.5 billion in spending on schools in the poorest districts. Legislators have added more than $1 billion for projects in other districts not tied to the court action.
On Thursday, the Assembly, the budget committee cleared the budget, which was to earlier in the week by Governor Corzine and legislative leaders. The panel also cleared several measures attached to the budget, including a hospital stabilization fund and $9 million for state parks. Corzine had earlier called for closing some parks and eliminating programs at others.
The pension and benefits reforms were put off until today, as was the school construction spending.
The Senate is also struggling with the same bills and hearings are planned for today as well.
E-mail: reitmeyer@northjersey.com
