Legislation recently introduced by Senate President Steve Sweeney threatens the pensions and health benefits of NJEA members and other public employees. Instead of finding ways for the state to meet its obligations to working families, starting with a millionaires tax to restore tax fairness to New Jersey, Sen. Sweeney wants to slash benefits and make it even harder for school employees to support their families. It would be a path to poverty for public employees and our families.
Contact your legislators today. Tell them to stand with working people and reject this attack on the pensions and benefits we have worked so hard to earn!
That’s your NJEA executives, folks, urging members to fight pension and benefits reform, particularly Senate President Steve Sweeney’s “Path to Progress.” Sweeney’s plan aims to fix our current health and benefits system which is the most underfunded in the country, particularly the Teachers Pension and Annuity Fund (TPAF). From Path to Progress:
The State’s combined pension and retiree health benefit liabilities of $151.5 billion are four times the size of the State’s annual budget; and more than three times the size of the State’s bonded debt. That public employee debt represents $16,772 for every one of New Jersey’s nine million residents, it will continue to grow every year. Without changes to the pension and benefit structure, the cost of pensions and benefits will rise by $4.1 billion over the next four years and eat up 26 percent of the state budget.
Wow. Twenty-six percent of our annual state budget? A liability of $16,772 for every NJ resident? That’s a lot. This fiscal predicament has many fathers, including underpayments, lack of accountability, and “platinum” level health plans for NJEA members, far more generous than either those offered in the private sector and other public worker plans.
Just how platinum are those plans?
Yesterday Propublica put out a report of health plans that cover the 158,000 NJEA members (about a third of school districts) that are enrolled in the state’s Employees’ Health Benefits Program. Here are some highlights from “What Happens When a Healthcare Plan Has No Limits?”
What’s up with this? A six-member committee oversees the state healthcare plan for teachers and one of the members acknowledges that the plan is in sore need of adjustment. From the article:
Yet to date, no action has been taken because the committee requires a majority vote to make changes. Three members represent teachers unions. And three work for the Treasury Department, which runs the health plan. Two of those members also serve on the plan design committee for the state workers’ plan, which voted unanimously to cap the out-of-network payments.
Stop the madness!
But we don’t because Sweeney’s proposals-–shifting plans from platinum to gold and requiring third-party audits of all healthcare claims— are non-starters for NJEA top brass. Said NJEA President Marie Blistan last Spring, “Proposals to further raise costs or slash benefits will irreparably harm our profession and our schools, and NJEA members will join as one to fight them.”
Meanwhile, how do I get in on free (for me!) $700/hour accupuncture sessions?
This is a statement by Paula White, Executive Director of JerseyCAN, on the New Jersey…
This is a press release. Earlier today, Gov. Phil Murphy signed a bill to eliminate…
Today Gov. Phil Murphy signed Senate Bill 896, which prohibits the New Jersey Department of…
The 74 conducted a study of the relative learning loss in Democratic (Blue) and Republican (Red) states and…
In October 2020 Newark Superintendent Roger Leon announced with great fanfare the opening of district’s…
This is a press release from the Governor's Office. In related news, one in five…
View Comments