The year is almost over. January 1st, 2011 marks the first day that municipalities in New Jersey must survive within a 2% cap on property tax increases. For towns that have been drunk on state aid and highly paid public workers contracts, this will be no easy task. When the cap was passed Governor Christie proposed a lengthy list of “toolkit” reforms to help municipalities deal with the change; reforms that would help ensure that costs do not grow above the cap limits and to maybe even make a reality out of the distant dream that is tax reduction in this state.
Well, Save Jerseyans, Senate President Steve Sweeney doesn’t think you deserve those reforms. Instead of working with the Governor and giving municipalities what they need to survive the budget crisis, he stonewalls the Senate Republicans at every turn and ignores their calls to even bring these important reforms up for a yes or no vote. If President Sweeney is against the reforms that is one thing, its totally understandable, he has a lot of terrible ideas, so I wouldn’t imagine that he would support perfectly good and sensible ones. However, he will not even let many of the reforms touch the Senate floor, and when they do, such as the arbitration bill that recently passed, they get watered down and contain asinine measures like sunset clauses, because in the mind of a Democrat, costs only need to stay down for a few years before we can allow things to get out of control again.
Yesterday the Senate Republicans tried to force consideration of the bills that will make a difference on your tax bills in the coming years. But as I said, Steve Sweeney isn’t interested. Some of the notable bills include:
S-2202 (Oroho)- Establishing a 2% cap on annual appropriations increases for certain government spending.
Goal: To force state government to live by the same spending
constraints as are required of counties and municipalities.S-2039 (Bateman)- Civil Service Reform/Local Opt Out
Goal: To provide meaningful civil service reform that affords local
governing bodies greater layoff and furlough authority, as well as the
opportunity to opt out of a system first conceived prior to modern
collective bargaining and labor law employee protections.S-2024 (Kyrillos)- Provides latitude to local government bodies to combine workforces/services
Goal: To encourage greater sharing of services among municipalities
by easing workforce consolidation rules.S-2025 (Kyrillos)- Requires executive county superintendents to expand sharing of services among school districts
Goal: To take advantage of cost saving opportunities between school
districts by sharing certain services and functions where possible and
appropriate.S-2043 (Kyrillos)- Allows school boards to impose “last, best offer”
Goal: To empower school boards to break collective bargaining
impasses within the economic constraints of Cap 2.0.S-2026 (Kean, T.)- Exempts employees of state colleges and universities from Civil Service
Goal: To slow tuition cost escalation by giving institutions of higher
education direct negotiating authority with employee unions and
greater control over workforce structure and salary scales.S-2027 (Kean, T.)- Requires consideration of state/county aid reductions, impact of settlements on tuition increases, and benefit standards for state employees in fact-finding contract decisions pertaining to higher education employees.
Goal: To reign in fact-finder awards by Public Employment Relations
Commission in higher education labor disputes.S-2172 (Bateman)- Higher education tenure reform
Goal: To reward merit and performance in tenure awards and career
development within state colleges and universities.
Call Steve Sweeney today at (856) 251-9801, wish him a Merry Christmas, and tell him to allow and up or down vote on the toolkit, time is running out.
