4
NEW JERSEY COPS ■ FEBRUARY 2014
PBA NEWS
NEW JERSEY STATE
POLICEMEN’S BENEVOLENT
ASSOCIATION
EXECUTIVE BOARD
Anthony F. Wieners
State President
Keith Dunn
Executive Vice-President
Mark Butler 1st Vice-President
Peter Andreyev 2nd Vice-President
Jerry Tolomeo 3rd Vice-President
Andy Haase 4th Vice-President
Henry Werner 5th Vice-President
Patrick Colligan 6th Vice-President
Kenneth Burkert 7th Vice-President
Michael Minni 8th Vice-President
Michael Pellegrino 9th Vice-President
Domenic Cappella 10th Vice-President
Mark Aurigemma 11th Vice-President
Michael Kaniuk 12th Vice-President
Wayne K. Hall Financial Secretary
George Miller Recording Secretary
John Monsees Treasurer
Manuel Corte Trustee
Marc Kovar Trustee
Mark Messinger Trustee
Eugene Dello Trustee
James Crilly Trustee
Keith Bennett Trustee
Richard Kott Trustee
Richard Brown Sergeant-at-Arms
Bruce Chester Sergeant-at-Arms
Margaret Hammond Sergeant-at-Arms
William Nativo Sergeant-at-Arms
Frederick Ludd Sergeant-at-Arms
Luke Sciallo Sergeant-at-Arms
Frank Cipully Sergeant-at-Arms
John Cernek Sergeant-at-Arms
Kevin Hibbitt Sergeant-at-Arms
Michael McLaughlin Sergeant-at-Arms
Rich Geib Sergeant-at-Arms
Here we go again…
Last month, I wrote
about New Year’s resolutions and how long we
try to keep them. I
touched on having reasonable goals and hopeworking
Keith Dunn fully our State together
with
LegislaExecutive
ture on issues that affect
Vice President
the everyday lives of our
members and their families. I guess I should have gotten an
advance copy of the Governor’s “State of
the State” address he delivered in midJanuary.
Excerpt from the speech:
“If we do not choose to reduce our
soaring pension and debt service costs,
we will miss the opportunity to improve
the lives of every New Jersey citizen, not
just a select few.”
I guess we are not his fellow law
enforcement officers that many thought
we were back in 2009. After the governor
won a second term, we can now be
referred to as just “a select few.” ONCE
AGAIN, it’s those damn, way too generous pensions that have to be paid to
those greedy cops and firefighters that
are to blame for all the state’s financial
woes.
Let’s just rewind to what was said in
the original campaign promise when he
proclaimed that nobody would stand up
for us more than he would (An Open Letter to Members of Our Law Enforcement
Community): “Let me be clear. Nothing
could be further from the truth. The
claim that any harm would come to
your pension when I’m elected Governor is absolutely untrue. It’s a 100-percent lie. Your pension will be protected
when I am elected governor.”
As if that wasn’t enough, he finished
the letter by stating: “It is a sacred trust.
HALF
TRUTH
LIE!
PANTS ON
FIRE!
Nothing will change for the pensions of
current officers, future officers or
retirees in a Christie Administration.”
If you wonder why I may have put
those two particular quotes in bold, it’s
because we were the only ones he promised in that letter. And if that’s what he
calls a sacred trust, I can only imagine
what his version of an unholy alliance is.
The NJ State PBA is preparing for the
battle to protect the very pension system
(PFRS) that we have made our full contributions to, while the state and many
municipalities have deferred, skipped or
sometimes just not even made their
required payments. We should not even
have to have this discussion because the
state should be making its obligated payments without having to be ordered to
do so. It was just a year ago that they were
patting each other on the back for making a long overdue payment into state
pensions.
We hope the legislators (both Democrat and Republican) will now stand with
us and stop kicking the can further down
the road. A commitment was made to
fully fund the pension system by the government of NJ. Imagine treating your
own personal finances this way or not
making required payments for purchases you made with credit cards or financing. The men and women of the NJSPBA
and the other law enforcement members who comprise the PFRS retirement
system have always, still do, and will
always, uphold our end of funding. Let’s
see if they do. d