Who is really making the sacrifice?
As many of you are aware, the New Jersey State
Supreme Court ruling regarding whether the governor must make payments into our pension has
been made. I have learned three things from this
recent decision:
1. Politicians lie, steal and cheat.
2. Politicians do not make any sacrifice, and are
rarely held accountable.
PETER
3. See numbers 1 and 2
ANDREYEV
On the face of the ruling, the Supreme Court’s
decision to not compel the governor to make the full pension payment could be detrimental. I mean one could imagine that our system is in trouble because the court did not hold the governor to his
promise, I mean lie, in which he publicly stated he would make the
required payments stemming from the
law that was a piece of the landmark legPENSION AND
islation, Chapter 78. I remind everyone
BENEFITS REPORT that, as a whole, our Police and Fire
Retirement System (PFRS) is financially
stable thanks in large part to our members who make the highest
pension contribution in the state, and also the local employers such
as our towns and county governments that are required to pay their
contributions.
I won’t get into any specific detail here regarding the legality of all
of this mess, however, I can say with certainty that our PFRS will not
run out of money anytime soon. Furthermore, you should know
that our pension system is funded at about 77 percent, and it would
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be higher had that extra 1.5 percent that was required to be contributed would have been deposited into the pension like we were
told it would. Remember the governor saying that it would be a
shared sacrifice? (See numbers 1 and 2 at the top.)
If the governor had met his obligations along with putting in that
extra 1.5 percent, the PFRS pensions would be funded in the 90-percent range, and our current and prospective retirees would have a
chance at restoring the Cost of Living Adjustments (COLA) that they
have been without since 2011
NJ State PBA President Pat Colligan has called for the repeal of
Chapter 78, and I couldn’t agree with him more. Why should we be
the only ones to sacrifice? Our members are consistently making
those sacrifices and yet we continue to be vilified by the governor.
We all have seen or heard the governor misleading the public and
media by telling them that the state pension systems are in trouble
or in crisis so he can get a few extra points in his approval ratings.
The governor should inform the masses that our PFRS members
have continued to pay into the pension even when other pension
systems members did not make their contributions. Due to our
members’ contributions - and along with the contributions from
local and county employers - the PFRS Retirement System is in a
much better position financially than the other pension funds in the
state.
In my opinion, the only group that has made any sacrifice are the
members of the Police and Fire Retirement System. d