Full Senate vote scheduled for Monday, February 22
A package of four bills was introduced last week, and heard in the Senate State Government Committee today. These bills will reduce public employee pensions & benefits, while doing nothing to alleviate any of the current problems with our under-funded pension system.
The five members of the State Government Committee voted unanimously to release these bills from committee, allowing them to be put to a full vote in the Senate on Monday, February 22. In over two and a half hours of testimony, including remarks from NJEA President Barbara Keshishian, NJREA President Ro Jankowski, and several of your peers and colleagues, the committee did not ask a single question of those testifying.
Clearly, your legislators don’t know what questions to ask! With the vote on these bills coming up on Monday, we need you to call your Senator and explain to them the impact these bills will have on thousands of working families in New Jersey. In addition, with these bills being likely to pass in Monday’s Senate vote, we need you to call your representatives in the Assembly and let them know what is in these bills! Here’s what you need to know about this package of legislation: S-2 – The Pension Bill – would eliminate defined-benefit pension plans for future part-time employees, and change the formula used to calculate pensions to reduce pension values by at least 8.3% for future employees.
S-3 – The Health Benefits Bill – would require all active employees to contribute 1.5% of their salary towards benefits, all new members to contribute 1.5% of their pension when they retire, and eliminate benefits for future part-time employees.
S-4 – The Leave Time Bill – would capsick leave compensation at a maximum of $15,000 and limit vacation leave carry-over to one year for future employees. S-4 also replaces ordinary and accidental disability under TPAF and PERS with purchased private disability insurance.
SCR-1 – The Constitutional Amendment – would mandate under-funding the pension system for the next eight years, by allowing to State to contribute only 1/7th of its full contribution each year until it reaches 100%.
