Christie: Public workers’ benefits must be cut

LONG BEACH TOWNSHIP – It was the first time Gov. Chris Christie had come to any event in Republican-red Ocean County where the protesters outnumbered his supporters.

And these were not just ordinary protesters — they were police officers and firefighters in the hundreds from all over New Jersey, outraged that Christie on Tuesday had come to use a municipal park their fraternal brothers and sisters had built for local children. The event was a stage for the governor to begin a summer campaign to convince residents that the state cannot necessarily honor its commitment to fully fund public workers’ health benefits and pensions in the future.

“This is a playground that police officers, firefighters, teachers, public workers, volunteered their time to build,” said Eddie Donnelly, president of the New Jersey State Firefighters Mutual Benevolent Association. “We believe it is completely unconscionable that the governor chose this venue to launch his attack … on police officers, firefighters, the men and women who are out there every day, protecting the citizens of New Jersey.”

To be clear, as Christie told retired Stafford Police Chief Larry D. Parker, those such as Parker who already are enjoying their golden years, would be unaffected by the changes his administration is planning to announce at the end of summer.

But the younger generations of police officers and those who have yet to earn the uniform will have to sacrifice, he said, or the entire system will simply go bankrupt for everyone.

“The root of all these problems comes down to some very simple things,” Christie said. “Government has made promises to people across this state that they had no idea how they were going to pay for.”

Now the bill has come due and no one in state government has any idea how to pay for these promises of the past.

“The day of reckoning is coming, everybody,” Christie said.

The governor said 60 cents of every dollar in new spending in recent years goes to state and federal entitlement programs — pensions, public sector health benefits and debt service — and that fact combined with a sluggish economy has become an unsustainable reality.

Moreover, the burden of funding these programs has impacted the state’s ability to spend money on badly needed infrastructure projects to improve roads and bridges, and to invest in public education and healthcare.

“On the pension side of things, the fact is over the last four years, I’ve paid more money into the public pension system than any governor in New Jersey history. I paid $2.9 billion into the pension system over the last four years. … But we still continue to fall further and further behind.”

The state’s 2011 benefits and pension reforms, which raised the retirement age and increased the contribution amounts made by individual employees to fund their health benefits, have helped stem the tide. But New Jersey continues to be saddled with 20 years of governors’ signing budgets in which little or no contributions were made to the system — creating a structural deficit.

“It’s paying off the stuff we ignored all those years, when we wouldn’t put in any money at all,” Christie said. “So it’s me paying for the sins of my predecessors.”

“Everybody wants something for nothing or less than what it’s worth,” Christie said. “I don’t know how we deal with that over the long haul. There are going to be all kinds of people who protest about this and yell and scream at me, and I get it. Yell and scream all you like, but in the end, either the books add up or they don’t. And right now they don’t.”

More than halfway through the town hall, Stafford Council President Sharon McKenna, a Republican, gave up her VIP seat inside a gazebo where Christie spoke so Parker could take her place and ask his question.

“I’m very concerned when I hear that the pension is the bad guy,” Parker said, who had been a police officer for 47 years, most of that time spent serving in Long Beach Township and Stafford, where he retired from in 2005 as its longtime chief.

Parker, 73, said when he started as an officer in the 1960s, his annual salary was $3,400; he obviously did not go into the profession for the money.

“We’re not here to talk about getting something for nothing,” Parker said. “I don’t think any of us want to rob the New Jersey taxpayers. We are taxpayers. What we’re looking for is, just like if I promised to pay somebody something, I have to pay it.”