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The fact is that our members agreed to pay an additional 1.5% directly from their paychecks to fund our pensions as a result of the Governor’s own highly touted pension law.
While the Governor promised to use these funds to help secure our pension fund, he is now hiding behind the courts in an effort to continue syphoning these funds for his own political gain.
This is not leadership. This is paramount to stealing from hard working law enforcement officers.
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BlooombergBusiness: While the ruling averts an immediate cash crunch, the pension hole continues to restrain spending on schools, tax relief and municipal aid. Christie has vowed not to raise taxes even as he acknowledges there’s no alternate plan for closing a deficit that may top $2.7 billion through June. READ MORE….
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The New Jersey pension system is not one monolithic fund that is losing money daily. In fact, the State manages five pension plans for State and local employees.
Of those five, PFRS is financed mainly by local governments, law enforcement officers and firefighters who have been making their required pension payments, even with the additional 1.5% required from Governor Christie’s own Chapter 78 legislation of 2011.
The PFRS system is stable at almost 77% and the only thing holding it back from operating at an almost 90% funding level is the governor’s broken promise.
Our law enforcement officers are out there every day working for our communities and continuing to make the payments required to make sure members and their families have a stable pension fund for their retirement.
Chapter 78 mandated both employer and employee sacrifices to provide funding to support the pension system. If it is only the employees who are required to make those sacrifices now under the Court’s ruling, then I am hereby calling on the Legislature to immediately repeal Chapter 78 in its entirety. It is only fair that this broken bargain be taken off our backs if the Administration refuses to do what it promised so clearly in 2011.
New Jersey Policemen’s Benevolent Assn President Patrick Colligan
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