Pension Funding May Be First Fight of 2015 for New Jersey Lawmakers

At some point in 2015, pension reform will become a hot topic in the New Jersey Legislature. The only question is when the battle will heat up.

From the looks of things, the fight over pension reform could begin sooner than later.

From New Jersey 101.5:

Funding New Jersey’s public employees’ pension system could be the first major fight in 2015 and it will likely pit long-time allies against one another. Gov. Chris Christie is calling for new reform, but state Sen. President Steve Sweeney (D-West Deptford) has drawn a line in the sand and said he will support further reform.

“He (Christie) has to fund it. We actually did the things that were necessary to fix it. He needs to fund the pension fund,” Sweeney said. “No matter what changes you make to a pension system, if you don’t meet the financial needs of it at the same time – no fix will work.”

The law required the state to contribute $1.6 billion into the pension system last fiscal year, but Christie paid in only $696 million. He signed an executive order to enable the lesser payment. The payment for this fiscal year was to be $2.25 billion, but the governor said he’ll contribute $681 million.

The governor must make the full $2.25 billion payment this year, according to Sweeney, who acknowledged it will be difficult.

“It’s going to put a lot of pressure on the budget, but we knew it. The big picture here is the lack of growth in the economy and he’s been the governor for five years now so he can’t point fingers at others,” Sweeney said.

[…]

Last fall, Christie began making his case for pension reform. He said it is an important, long-term project.

“It’s something that we can’t ignore because it will first crowd out any other type of investments the state wants to make in important projects around the state, and it will then ultimately bankrupt the state,” Christie said.

Gov. Christie has made it clear that reforms would likely mean further benefit cuts.

Sweeney, on the other hand, is pushing for a funding solution that involves more state money going to the pension system.

Photo By Walter Burns [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons