Retirement
Planning
Bruce Polkowitz, the Local 600
and NJSPBA-endorsed candidate
for PFRS trustee, has the
experience, vision and
can-do attitude to help
the new pension system
provide maximum
benefi ts for retired
members
■ BY MITCHELL KRUGEL
■ PHOTOS BY ED CARATTINI JR.
Don’t think Bruce Polkowitz worries about the daunting task
of building the new PFRS, if elected to be the retiree on the
trustee board. He is used to it-can’t-be-done quests.
Back in 1990, when he was the newly elected Edison Town-
ship Local 75 State Delegate, Polkowitz noticed a small migra-
tion of PBA members seduced by a legal defense plan to other
representation. Like Lewis and Clark or Neil Armstrong, he set
out to create a legal protection plan that would be the envy of
all legal plans.
“They said it couldn’t be done,” Polkowitz recalls. “I wasn’t
quite sure how it could be, but I wasn’t going to stop until we
had something better than anybody else.”
Polkowitz gathered a team that started by getting referrals
from county conferences and Locals to pitch attorneys across
the state. More than 50 of them. They put together conditions
of coverage and terms of payment and found an independent
insurance company to underwrite the plan. They created bro-
chures and flyers to promote enrollment.
It all led to a launch meeting in 1993 at the Hyatt in New
Brunswick, where 50 attorneys attended. And it became the
forerunner to the PBA’s Legal Protection Plan (LPP) that is now
the most prolific of its kind for any public safety labor union in
the country.
“I’m not sure we realized at the time what a monumental leap
that was,” explains Bob Fagella, one of the PBA’s attorneys with
the firm Zazzali, Fagella, Nowak, Kleinbaum and Friedman, who
was part of that team in 1990. “It was prescient in the sense that
it turned out litigation against police officers actually dropped.
The plan was proactive not only because it reduced the number
of charges but members had a mechanism for defending them-
selves.”
If such an achievement doesn’t endorse Polkowitz’s readi-
ness to represent retired law enforcement officers and firefight-
ers in the new higher-risk/higher-reward PFRS, then maybe this
does: He is all in and best equipped on probably the two most
critical aspects of the new pension system.
The first is securing its full funding and ability to meet pay-
ments, as the retired population continues to live longer and
deserves to thrive into super-senior years without worrying
CONTINUED ON PAGE 34
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■ NOVEMBER 2018 33