Pam Hartkopf (pamhart5@optonline.net)
  
I honestly hesitate to write another disheartening column after recent newsletter columns where I reported the lack of increases in our pensions and Social Security benefits and changes in our dental and prescriptions plans.  But all the recent attacks on the pensions and health benefits of public employees have angered me.

Many retired teachers and school personnel in New Jersey have been fortunate to have pensions and dental, eye and prescription plans.  There are millions of American who have no plan or limited plans.  That doesn’t mean that I must bear the criticism of public employees in the last few weeks without some annoyance.

For months I listened to the rumors that our new governor, Chris Christie, would make huge cuts in the New Jersey budget.  There is no doubt that the state is in dire financial straits and that successive administrations have added to our debt, and these are serious economic times for our country and the world.  Some say the state of New Jersey is in bankruptcy.  However, the reports that public employees are responsible for a large portion of NJ’s debt trouble me.

The Legislature and Governor agree that public employees are “burdening” the state with our pensions and benefits.  There is legislation (which will likely pass) proposed to change the calculations for the pension formula from age 55 to 60 and to require current public employees and future retirees to contribute 1.5% of their annual salaries or base pensions to their health care benefits. Current retirees appear safe at this point, or are they?  I have read on blogs the remarks of NJ residents who have suggested that public employee retirees pay 25% of their health benefits and one who even suggested that these pensions be cut by 50%.

Then the Governor said in Trenton on February 11, “[P]ensions and benefits are the major driver of our spending increases at all levels of government.”  Later in the speech he remarked “What has been done to our citizens by offering a pension system we cannot afford and health benefits that are 41% more expensive than the average fortune 500 company’s cost is truly unfair part of this equation.”  These comments and others have rallied those working in the private sector against us and characterized us as the villains who are responsible for the state’s financial mess.

Aside from the Governor’s plans to “reform” the state’s pension plan, he plans to cut school aid to many school districts (School districts have since been warned that there will be a 15% cut.) and to cut subsidies to New Jersey transit (NJ Transit has announced that there will be a fare hike by May.).  Environmentalists fear that the Governor will raid the state’s Clear Energy Fund which protects our clean air and water.  With less aid, more hospitals, like Muhlenberg, may be forced to close.  More positively, one judge, Stephen Skillman, recently froze Christie’s order to suspend the activity of the state Council on Affordable Housing for ninety days.

But still I am more than discontent as I wrote last summer.  I am angry. Why was Christie Whitman allowed to divert money from our pension funds in the 1990s because the fund at that time was “over funded?  Why did later governors not do the appropriate funding, and if it’s a state law to fund our pensions, what were the Legislature and State Supreme Court thinking?  How come public employees contributed far more money to the fund than the state for over a decade?  Why did our governor stand up before the Legislature last month and use misinformation and exaggeration to describe the pension of one teacher which has polarized many people against all teachers and other public employees?  Why are teachers and other public employees the symbol for the state’s financial woes?

 

 

 

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