Christie stressed that changes are needed to keep system afloat, blamed NJEA
Gov. Christie continued rolling out his massive pension change proposals with a town hall meeting at the Edison Senior Center today.EDISON — Gov. Chris Christie this afternoon held his second town hall meeting on pension and health benefits reform, stressing that the changes are needed to keep the system afloat and pinning a share of the blame for its troubles on his political enemy, the New Jersey Education Association.
Christie again outlined his plan to fix the pension system — currently underfunded by at least $46 billion — by rolling back a 9 percent pension increase from 2001, upping employee contributions to 8.5 percent, suspending cost of living adjustments and increasing the number highest-paid years by which pensions are calculated, among other proposals.
“We need to step up to the plate collectively as a society and fix this problem, because if we don’t we will careen and land in disaster,” said Christie, who said both political parties “whistled a happy tune” when the stock market was doing well and allowed the system to become unsustainable.
Christie also addressed complaints that police and fire personnel still got more generous benefits than other public workers, allowing them to retire at an earlier age.
“I don’t think we want 65-year-old people chasing criminals down the street. And with some rare exceptions, I don’t think we want people 65 or older climbing buildings and putting out fires. It is a younger person’s profession,” he said. “The benefits need to be different in order to compensate for that.”
Christie said he “has every intention” of making a contribution to the pension system that he skipped in this year’s budget, but said the state needs to lower its estimate of the fund’s rate of return from investments from 8.5 percent to 7.5 percent, which will mean a larger contribution from the state.
Christie went on to say that the teachers union should accept a “disproportionate” amount of blame for the troubles in the pension system because “they’re the ones who continue to demand more and more benefits and they don’t raise their amount that they pay.”
But the NJEA upped its payment into the pension system by 10 percent in 2007 – from 5 percent to 5.5 percent – spokesman Steve Baker said.
“There were no new benefits included in that,” said Baker. “This typical Christie union bashing. He’s trying to create a scapegoat to distract attention from his failures as governor, and one of his biggest failures as governor is his failure to fund the pension system.”
Christie plans another town hall meeting next week to address how to encourage private sector job growth, followed by a final town hall the last week of September on education reforms.
| Gov. Chris Christie continues town hall meetings to discuss state pension and benefits reform |
