TRENTON — After passing the biggest piece of the proposed "tool kit" legislation today, New Jersey leaders looked to the next set of reforms: changes to civil service and overhauling the health care and pension systems. With only one dissenting vote in the Assembly, lawmakers approved a compromise that would limit annual pay raises for police and fire unions...
TRENTON — After passing the biggest piece of the proposed "tool kit" legislation today, New Jersey leaders looked to the next set of reforms: changes to civil service and overhauling the health care and pension systems.
With only one dissenting vote in the Assembly, lawmakers approved a compromise that would limit annual pay raises for police and fire unions at 2 percent if they can’t reach an agreement during contract negotiations.
"It was the hardest bill to get done," Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Glouster) said after the legislation cleared the Senate unanimously. "We still have a lot of pressing issues."
In the new year, lawmakers and Gov. Chris Christie have vowed to consider comprehensive reforms to the health care and pension systems, part of cost-saving proposals to help municipalities handle the impending 2 percent cap on property tax collections. Sweeney said negotiating those reforms could prove to be equally as difficult.
Both chambers also approved legislation addressing civil service, the rules that control the hiring, promotions and firing of public employees. Christie recommended allowing towns to opt out of civil service, but that was not included in the legislation.
Calling it "real reform," Sweeney said the civil service legislation allows local leaders to move employees between departments, a common practice in the private sector that is restricted in government. The legislation also sets up a task force to reduce the number of titles used in civil service, giving the municipalities more flexibility in work duties.
League of Municipalities Executive Director Bill Dressel said the civil service bill doesn’t go far enough in helping towns control labor costs, and that towns should be able to opt out of the system by referendum.
"We believe that people, since they initially voted to allow civil service in their municipalities, should be given the opportunity to opt out of civil service," he said.
About one-third of New Jersey’s municipalities are in the civil service system, which was established in 1908 to protect employees from being fired to make way for political cronies and other patronage hires. But Dressel said it has outlived its usefulness.
"We did not have the state and federal labor laws. We didn’t have equal opportunity. There was cronyism and patronage rampant, not only in the public sector, but in the private sector as well," he said. "The days of Nucky Thompson and Boardwalk Empire have long since passed."
In announcing the agreement on arbitration reform, Christie said he and legislative leadership would continue to negotiate civil service. Christie can conditionally veto the bill, rewrite it to include any compromise agreements and send it back to the Legislature for a new vote.
Christie is expected to sign the arbitration reform legislation later this week.
The legislation is the product of a compromise deal struck between Christie and Democratic leadership of both chambers.
If a union and municipality can’t come to an agreement on a new contract, both parties will have the option to seek a third-party to settle their difference, known as arbitration. Under the new rules, the arbitrator must decide on a new contract within 45 days and any increase to the unions would have to average 2 percent annually over the life on the contract.
The new rules require arbitrators to be selected randomly and limits their pay at $1,000 a day and $7,500 for an entire case.
As part of the compromise, health and pension costs for the unions will be exempted from the 2 percent limit, but no new pay categories can be created to circumvent the cap.
Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon (R-Monmouth), the sponsor of the Republicans’ first version of arbitration reform, said he had several problems with the bill, most of all that it expires after three years. But he said it made progress in helping towns curtail property taxes.
"We’ve come a long way, baby. It was little more than a year ago that we had no idea that this type of sweeping, comprehensive reform would even be remotely possible," he said.
Assemblyman Charles Mainor (D-Hudson), a detective in the Jersey City Police Department, was the only vote against the arbitration reform bill.
By Ginger Gibson and Matt Friedman/Statehouse Bureau