Sweeney Puts Focus on Fiscal Reforms at Meeting with North Jersey Jewish Business Alliance

TRENTON – Senate President Steve Sweeney today warned that New Jersey won’t be able to afford to make the investments in education, higher education, transportation and social services it needs unless it addresses the looming budget crisis caused by runaway pension and benefit costs.

Meeting with leaders of the North Jersey Jewish Business Alliance in a roundtable at the Statehouse today, Senator Sweeney (D-Gloucester/Salem/Cumberland) discussed the recommendations of the bipartisan Economic and Fiscal Policy Workgroup to address the state’s long-term fiscal crisis.

“Without major structural reforms, New Jersey’s pension and benefit costs will go up $4.2 billion over the next four years,” said Senator Sweeney. “If we don’t fix our pension system and control benefit costs, we will be facing a multi-billion-dollar deficit in the years ahead, and all that does is pay for the cost of government. It doesn’t do anything to expand preschool, invest in our universities, fully and properly fund state aid to local school districts, or provide social services for those who need it.

“We can’t tax our way out of this crisis, nor should we – New Jerseyans already pay some of the highest taxes in the country. We need to make our state more affordable – not less affordable – for our hard-working middle-class families, for new college graduates and millennials deciding where they are going to live, and for senior citizens trying to decide whether they can afford to stay.”

Senator Sweeney told the business leaders that the new hybrid pension system recommended by the Economic and Fiscal Policy Workgroup is not a new idea; 12 states, including Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Ohio, have already adopted hybrid systems. The plan would fully preserve the existing pension system for teachers and state, county and municipal employees with five years of service.

He also explained how state and local governments could save over $1.2 billion for taxpayers by shifting from the state’s current “Platinum-Plus-Plus” system to a Gold-level health care plan comparable to those offered by New Jersey’s largest private sector companies to their employees.

“One of the best things about the shift from Platinum to Gold is that teachers and other public employees would save over $200 million that they are paying out of their paychecks toward their health premiums for a level of coverage most of them are never going to use,” Senator Sweeney said.