Governor puts brakes on pension reform bill Effort on property taxes falters as deadline looms Friday, December 08, 2006 • BY DUNSTAN McNICHOL AND DEBORAH HOWLETT • Star-Ledger Staff Gov. Jon Corzine gutted a sweeping public employee pension reform bill yesterday, ensuring that lawmakers will reach a Dec. 31 deadline with little to show for their four-month effort to rein in soaring property taxes. Lawmakers preparing a package of pension and benefits changes were asked by Corzine to strip out all provisions affecting unionized government workers, for the sake of current contract negotiations. "Why did we go through this exercise and really foist this hoax and mirage on the people of New Jersey and say we're going to give property tax relief when we now know we're doing nothing?" Assemblyman Kevin O'Toole (R-Essex) asked. "Charlie Brown, the football's being taken away by Lucy for the 15th time." O'Toole, a member of the special committee set up to recommend changes in the state's pension and health benefits program, spoke at the end of a long day of backroom meetings and public displays of frustration at the Statehouse. The four special legislative committees set up in August to tackle the property tax problem met yesterday to take another look at scores of proposals they had developed -- but left a tangle of unfinished business at the end of the day. "We're playing games," said Sen. Joseph Doria (D-Hudson), a member of the special committee set up to consider school funding reforms. "We in the Legislature are more responsible for perpetrating frauds on the public on a continuing basis, because we pass these things because we've got to do it to make ourselves look good." At the school funding committee hearing, co-chairs of the panel set up to retool the formula for dispensing more than $7 billion in annual school aid repeatedly chided witnesses for mentioning school funding in their testimony, saying they were off topic. The new funding formula was a centerpiece of the special property tax reform effort, but it has been delayed and is not expected to be finished before the end of January. "It gives us the impression that everything is preordained and this is all for show," said Julie Raskin, a Glen Ridge school board member and mother of two, after offering truncated testimony yesterday. Her board president, Elizabeth Ginsburg, was equally critical, noting that three of the four special committees had their meetings scheduled at noon. "This holding simultaneous meetings on major topics is not democracy," she said. "What we have in New Jersey is an oligarchy." The other three special committees encountered similar detours in bringing property tax reform to the table. At the Special Committee on Constitutional Reform, lawmakers and members of Corzine's staff crossed swords over a plan to expand the penalty for building on preserved farmland (SCR121). The dispute is likely to delay consideration of the measure for a month. Leaders of the Special Committee on Government Consolidation and Shared Services pulled a proposed bill to revamp property reassessments (A14) after its sponsor discovered it did not do what he had intended. Of the 98 reform measures lawmakers proposed just two weeks ago, only nine will be on the agendas of the Senate and Assembly when they meet Monday. Those bills include one to set up an independent commission to recommend town mergers, one to expand the powers of county school superintendents, and one to eliminate "inactive" state boards and councils. Among the key reform measures missing are a new school funding formula, a proposal to extend 20 percent property tax credits to homeowners making less than $100,000, and dozens of measures aimed at reining in the soaring costs of retirement programs and health insurance for state and local governments. Lawmakers, who had proposed 41 pension and benefits changes, on Monday proposed a pared-down package (S40) with 24 of those changes. But late yesterday, Corzine sent lawmakers a letter requesting that any provision affecting state or local public employees be stripped from the bill. That would leave just 13 proposals, most of them prospective changes to retirement benefits for future elected officials, which lawmakers may take up again at some later date. "It's a watered-down version of the watered-down version," complained O'Toole. Corzine convinced legislative leaders that some of the changes would endanger his administration's current contract negotiations with state workers unions. "The effort to address these issues in the context of collective negotiations and discussions with public sector unions might well be significantly compromised if the noted changes were to be implemented legislatively at this time," Corzine said in a letter to Senate President Richard Codey (D-Essex) and Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts (D-Camden). Codey and Roberts later released a statement saying they "were prepared to move forward" but had "no intention of advancing a bill that the governor won't support." That leaves all the responsibility for pension and benefits reform -- which lawmakers say could have saved taxpayers as much as $1.2 billion a year -- on Corzine's shoulders as he negotiates with union leaders. "The governor says we need to respect the collective bargaining process, and the Legislature agrees," Codey and Roberts said. "With that said, it's not sufficient to just have negotiations. What's needed are successful negotiations." Corzine's actions are a victory for the state's labor unions, some of which said they may consider canceling or scaling back a massive protest scheduled for Monday. Eric Richard, legislative affairs coordinator for the AFL-CIO, said union officials will decide today whether to have the rally, but said he did not consider the changes to the reform legislation a victory for labor. "I consider it a victory for the collective-bargaining process," said Richard. "We still have to go to the table. This isn't over yet." Staff writer Tom Hester contributed to this report. © 2006 The Star-Ledger. Used by NJ.com with permission.