Archived Articles
Below are summaries of various legislative bills Local 1036 is tracking and/or working on to oppose or amend. The summaries are for informational purposes.
May 17, 2010
Governor's "Toolkit" to dismantle civil service and collective bargaining rights. See separate article above.
S–10 (Sweeney)/A-10 (Oliver/Cryan) – "Millionaire's Tax" - Bill seeks to increase the income tax rate on incomes exceeding 1 million dollars. If passed, bill would impact an estimated 16,000 taxpayers and raise an estimated $637 million that could be used to offset some of the very painful budget cuts on some of New Jersey’s most vulnerable citizens. The proposed FY11 budget has been described by Governor Christie as requiring “shared sacrifice” in order to meet the challenges of our ailing economy’s effect on our state budget. Unfortunately, without passage of this legislation, this description rings hollow, because the most wealthy will be paying less this year than they did last year. Giving the wealthiest 1% in NJ a tax break while cutting public services and forcing layoffs is not shared sacrifice.
Bill Posted for Both Senate and Assembly Floor Votes on Thursday, May 20, 2010
S-1813 (Madden/Sweeney) & A2624 (Egan/Albano)—Bill shifts the unemployment insurance employer tax schedule from the current “B” schedule, to the “C” schedule for FY11. The bill is viewed as “middle ground” between the Governor’s plan that includes unemployment insurance benefit reductions for workers, and the alternative – which is allowing the employer tax schedule to change to E + 10. Therefore, the bill minimizes the adverse impact on employers, but also takes an important first step toward healing the unemployment insurance fund solvency problems, without reducing benefits for workers.
Bill Posted for Both Senate and Assembly Floor Votes on Thursday, May 20, 2010.
A-2620 (O’Scanlon) – Bill seeks to increase the multiplier of final compensation used in the calculation of the deferred, early and service retirement allowances for members of the TPAF and PERS be changed from n/55 to n/60 for service credited on and after January 1, 2011.
Bill Introduced Thursday, May 6th. Referred to Assembly State Government Committee. No Senate Version of the Bill has been introduced.
S-1730 (Norcross/O’Toole/Sacco) & A-2478 (Moriarty/Riley/Burzichelli/Fuentes/Wilson) – “NJ First Act” "Residency Bill" – Bill seeks to require NJ State residency for any person holding an office, employment or position within NJ’s public sector. The new hire has 1 year to move into NJ after accepting his/her position. The bill grandfathers all current employees. The bill allows for promotional movement for current employee within his/her State Department. However, if a current employee voluntarily accepts a promotion or transfer to another Department or public sector employer, the residency requirement engages and the employee has one year to move to NJ. Any employee involuntarily reassigned or transferred is grandfathered and a residency change will not be required.
There is a 3-person committee that will review requests for exemptions from the residency requirement every 30 days. There are additional amendments that our Local is working on to get in the bill either before this Thursday when the Senate is expected to vote on it or to be done in the Assembly version of the bill.
Bill Posted for Senate Floor Vote on Thursday, May 20, 2010. We will be working on amendments to be offered in Assembly version of the bill.
Retirees Pay for Health Insurance Bill -- Not Introduced Yet & No Sponsors
Published reports say the bill will seek to have current employees pay 1.5% of their healthcare premium in retirement if they retire after August 1, 2010. It is not clear if this would apply to all government workers in PERS or will apply to TPAF only.
Again, the Christie Administration has leaked that it wants the legislature to introduce this bill, but nothing has been introduced or sponsored yet and there is no concrete information available yet on this bill. Stay tuned.
