N.J. eyes benefit limits

TRENTON | Two years ago, state legislators proposed a sweeping plan to reduce pensions and benefits for future public workers, declaring them a contributor to the state's highest in the nation property taxes and dramatically out of touch with what workers faced in the private sector.

The lawmakers wanted to eliminate pensions and health benefits for future part-time public employees and elected officials. They also wanted to increase the work week to 40 hours for new employees, change the way pensions are calculated for new workers and reduce the number of paid holidays.

Senate Majority Leader Stephen Sweeney led the push for reform.

But intense opposition from the powerful public unions -- including a Statehouse protest by thousands of workers -- halted the effort.

In recent weeks, however, lawmakers led by Sweeney and Senate Budget Chairwoman Barbara Buono, D-Middlesex, managed to push through legislation to scale back future compensation for teachers and public employees. The change is milder than the 2006 proposals and less comprehensive than the alterations they initially set out to make this year.

The new plan includes increasing the future retirement age from 60 to 62 and reducing paid public holidays. It also increases the annual salary threshold for teachers and public employees to be eligible for a pension to $7,500.

Some union representatives discarded the changes as watered-down proposals that did little to save money. However, legislators said their success could create momentum for additional changes, either next year or in the fall.

"People can downplay these things as much as they want," Sweeney said. "This thing was bigger than anyone ever realized."

Public unions reportedly spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to campaign against the legislation. Union representatives also warned lawmakers their votes would be remembered come election time. None of the legislators is up for election this year and state senators are not up until 2011. All 80 Assembly members and the governor are up for election in 2009.

Assembly Republicans want additional reforms, election year or not.

Assembly Minority Leader Alex DeCroce called the recently passed measures "lightweight." On the night of the vote, when Republicans helped end a four-hour deadlock to get the measure passed in the Assembly, he got Sweeney's word the two would work together on additional reforms.

DeCroce wants to crack down on elected officials' benefits and include not only a salary threshold for pension eligibility, but an hourly requirement.

"I am willing to do more," Sweeney said. "But I've got to make sure that there's the willpower to do more."

Gov. Jon Corzine has said repeatedly he believes changes to union contracts should be done at the bargaining table.

Should legislators produce additional reform measures in the future, union representatives vow to oppose them at all costs.

"We made a significant investment in advertising and activating our members to lobby," said Steve Baker, spokesman for the New Jersey Education Association, the largest teachers union in the state. "We will oppose it absolutely as adamantly and absolutely as strongly as we did this spring."