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Corzine Approves Cuts In Public Worker Benefits

TRENTON (AP) ― Public employees in New Jersey will no longer get Lincoln's Birthday as an official holiday and newly hired workers won't be able to retire with full benefits until they're 62, under newly signed legislation.

Gov. Jon Corzine signed the benefit-cutting bill into law Monday, three months after the Legislature approved it. Asked why he delayed signing the measure while schools hired new teachers under the more generous benefits rules, Corzine said he wanted to make sure the changes were administered appropriately.

"This legislation is another step in the realignment of the compensation of our public employees," Corzine said. "The reforms over the last two years strike the right balance of being fair to hardworking public employees and at the same time lightening the burden on taxpayers."

The law increases the retirement age from 60 to 62, requires that government workers and teachers earn $7,500 per year to qualify for a pension, eliminates Lincoln's Birthday as a state worker holiday, allows the state to offer incentives not to take health insurance and requires municipal employees work 20 hours per week to get health benefits.

The changes affect mainly new state workers and teachers.

The state's labor unions unsuccessfully lobbied Corzine to veto the bill, arguing that the law sidesteps a requirement that their contracts be negotiated.

"The pension legislation violates the collective bargaining agreement state workers negotiated 18 months ago, and undermines the retirement security of some of the state's lowest-income workers -- all to save less than one-twentieth of one percent of the state's annual budget," Communication Workers of America spokesman Bob Master said in a written statement.

"Pretending to address the state's fiscal problems through these gratuitous attacks on working families is not an accomplishment that Gov. Corzine or the Legislature should be proud of."

But Senate Majority Leader Steve Sweeney said these reforms and more are necessary to shore up the state pension system.

"The irresponsible acts of the Legislature and union leaders in the 1990s, along with additional changes in legislation in 2001, which were done without any real dollars to cover the cost of the enhancements, have put the state in a financial bind," said Sweeney, who attended Monday's bill signing. "It would be absolutely unfair to ask taxpayers to shoulder the additional costs."

Sweeney promised more reforms to come for the long-term health of the state pension system, though he said he would bow to Corzine's wish to negotiate future union concessions during contract talks.

For example, public employees now contribute 5.5 percent of their salary to their pensions, an amount Sweeney said should be 8.5 percent.

"It's not beyond the realm of possibility that the pension system could collapse," said Sen. Nick Scutari, who co-chaired the Joint Legislative Committee on Public Employee Benefits Reform, which examined the issue prior to the introduction of the legislation.

Scutari, D-Middlesex, said the committee's final report contained more than 40 recommendations focused on restoring the public's trust and protecting the financial integrity of the system.

Plans to change how pensions are calculated, require employees work 30 hours per week to get a pension and limit people with multiple public jobs to one pension were killed before the reform legislation was approved.

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