Dear Editor:
Governor Christie’s bills will hurt the State of New Jersey and destroy the municipalities of they are passed. The taxes will go so high for the cities that the homeowners will have to sell and move out of the state where they can survive and the renters will not be able to afford the rents. The bill is forcing all State, Educational, Police and Municipal employees not to retire and stay on the job for years to past what they would want to retire and that cost will be in the millions to the cities. An example is if an employee whether it’s a police officer, teacher, state worker or a municipal employee retires you then saves on his salary, pension, social security and they lose some of their benefits and these employees are at high salaries with 25 to 35 years of service. With the governor’s proposal the employees will not retire due to the fact that they will not be able to afford to and the cities will have to pay these funds for many more years. Where is the savings to the State or the Cities there is none at all its bigger cost and taxes will have to go up and up? If the employees retire you can then rehire at the minimum salary of not hire at all, there is your savings. You can hire 2 or 3 employees to replace the one that has retired, it makes sense and his bill does not.
Also it’s time again to take the state back and whatever politician votes for these bills as its stands then lets vote them out of office and see how they like not having benefits, a job or the things that we forth for all these years. All they would have to do is grandfather the employees who put in the time and give them time to retire or buy them out it would save millions. I would rather give an employee their retirement package that he is entitled to rather than keep him on the payroll for an extra 5 to 10 years that would cost the city over a million dollars in salary and benefits for each employee, there is your savings.
All Union and their families get together and fight for your lives because that’s what it will take now. This sounds like the President’s Health Plan, push it through without a reality check, this is not what we need to make this state great again. What we need is to get rid of the wasted within the state and we all know where that it is in your Towns and Cities.
Leonard Lucente
President
Union City Employee Association