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N.J. Senate approves sweeping pension changes for public employees

By Lisa Fleisher/Statehouse Bureau

February 22, 2010, 3:16PM

TRENTON -- With hundreds of union workers looking on from the gallery and waiting in the hallway, the Senate this afternoon easily passed three bills that made sweeping changes to public employee pensions.

The one bill not voted on would have put a constitutional amendment on the ballot in November asking voters to require the state to contribute money to the pension fund. The Senate is expected to hold a required public hearing on the amendment Monday and can bring the amendment up for a vote 20 days after that.

The bills passed 36-0, with four senators not voting. The Assembly is expected to introduce its versions of the bills on Thursday.

The one bill not voted on would have put a constitutional amendment on the ballot in November asking voters to require the state to contribute money to the pension fund.

State and local workers in the state system -- about 700,000 in all -- said New Jersey's politicians have put the $68 billion pension fund in peril by not contributing their fair share.

But legislators see it differently.

"We're here trying to save this pension system. We're not trying to rob it," said Sen. Jim Whelan (D-Atlantic), said last week when the State Government Committee he chairs approved the bills for release to the full house. "We're trying to save it for future generations."

All four bills have at least 23 Senate sponsors, more than the 21 required for passage. Senators from both parties who cleared the package last week stressed urgency in fixing the struggling retirement funds.

"We have to get something done. We can't spend six months, a year, the next 18 months arguing about a perfect pension reform bill," Whelan said last week.

Public workers and their unions said changes in benefits should be made at the bargaining table and they are being treated as scapegoats. A police union official ripped up a letter Gov. Chris Christie wrote during his gubernatorial campaign that called pensions a "sacred trust."

"We don't ask the public to absorb 1 percent of the smoke we inhale," said Bill Lavin, an Elizabeth firefighter and union official. "We don't feel that we therefore should have to share in the very medical attention to keep us safe and put us back on the job."

Christie has said the bills would not "do harm to the future benefits of police and firemen. But everybody needs to step up to the plate and contribute."

The pension system was underfunded by about $34 billion as of the last official accounting.

The bills would require workers and retirees to contribute to their own health care costs, ban part-time workers from the pension system, cap sick-leave payouts, trim the size of pensions and constitutionally require the state to fully fund its pension obligations. Most changes would apply to future workers, but current employees would contribute to their health care costs.

Staff writer Claire Heininger contributed to this report.