In a characteristically brash move, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) announced a plan to restructure the state pension system just one day after a New Jersey judge said his plan to cut the state’s contributions to its pension system violates the state constitution.
Christie’s fiscal year 2015 budget proposal, which he presented to the New Jersey legislature on Feb. 24, includes a plan to add $1.3 billion to the state pension system. That is less than half the amount the state is to contribute to the system under an earlier agreement New Jersey Superior Court Judge Mary Jacobson on Feb. 23 said the state could not “simply walk away from.”
What Christie calls the “Roadmap for Reform” would:
- freeze the pension plan;
- provide that the New Jersey Education Association would take ownership of a new pension fund for educators;
- require the state by a constitutional amendment to fund its current obligations over the next 40 years; and
- call for unions to agree to significant health care cost savings to offset the pension plan costs.
Christie remarked during his speech that “we don't need any court to tell us we have a serious problem.”
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