The City Council’s move to restore pension bonuses to four retired workers injured on the job may violate state law.
The City Council is seeking to restore funds that were cut last year when the city sought to make sure its operations were in accordance with state law.
Last December, following guidelines set by the city attorney, the council removed a supplemental pension from the city for about 23 retired employees.
Councilman Gary La Pelusa asked the newly installed city attorney to check into state law to make certain that the resolution was legal.
Different in Bayonne
It has been the rule in Bayonne for some time, but it was changed by the state several years ago.
In Bayonne eight years ago, Leonard Kantor, a retired police officer, filed a suit against the city because he qualified for the supplemental pension under a special compensation provision for injuries sustained on the job. While he won the case, he was awarded only an additional $4,500 toward his yearly pension.
“I’m not proposing to deny them anything. I just want to know if it is legal for us to do so.” – Gary La Pelusa
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State legislators, however, passed legislation since then that did away with these special compensation payments.
While the matter was challenged in court in a case called Brown vs. Old Bridge, the court ruled against the retirees, saying that while the law may be unfair, it is up to the state legislature to amend it.
Last December, Jay Coffey, then director of the Law Department for the City of Bayonne, said the city has been making these payments for several years even though state regulations did away with the special compensation.
Coffey said that state legislators noted that pensions were receiving yearly incremental increases to meet the rise in the cost of living, and that the pensions had risen to the same levels as the disability payments.
While Coffey agreed that the state legislature may have erred in presuming that the amount of pension a decade later equaled the buying power of the original disability payments, the city is acting to correct the matter.
At the time, Business Administrator Peter Cresci said there was a pool of approximately 23 pensioners who were receiving disability pensions.
“Through the years, as the state disability contribution increased, the city of Bayonne’s portion should have decreased,” Cresci said. “It did not. Through our audit of the payroll system, we detected this overpayment. Each pensioner is currently receiving the level or in excess of their last salary. We stopped the windfall each pensioner was receiving.”
The City Council is proposing to restore these increased payments to four of the 23 people.
“These are four police officers hurt in the line of duty,” said Councilman Terrence Ruane. “I don’t want to deny them.”
In a heated reply, La Pelusa said, “I’m not proposing to deny them anything. I just want to know if it is legal for us to do so.”
New police cars, new ShopRite
In other council news, Police Chief Robert Kubert recently told the council that the bust of drug ring on Kennedy Boulevard will allow the department to purchase an additional five sorely needed police cars to help bolster the aging fleet.
The council had already planned to purchase ten 2010 Chevrolet Impala police cars. Although funds for the new cars were in place for months thanks to a donation from local chemical company IMTT, the Urban Enterprise Zone, and the Bayonne Municipal Utilities Authority, the cars were not purchased. Because of General Motors’ bankruptcy earlier this year, no one was certain if the company would continue to manufacture the model Bayonne uses.
The council is expected to vote on a contract allowing the purchase of the first 10 cars from Mall Chevrolet in Cherry Hill, N.J. at the Sept. 30 meeting for a price not to exceed $264,620.
The cost will be covered entirely by the drug money seized during last year’s bust.
During Kubert’s explanation, Council John Halecky interjected, “So crime does pay after all,” but Kubert responded, “It pays for us, but not for the guys who committed the crimes.”
Fast track for Shop Rite
The City Council is expected to grant a request for a noise ordinance waiver that would allow the ShopRite project to add a second shift of construction workers in order to finish the project by December.
The waiver will allow workers to continue to work up until 11 p.m. at night rather than the current 6 p.m.
Steve Gallo, chief of staff for Mayor Mark Smith, explained that the work will be completely enclosed by walls of the building.
“This is all interior work,” he said. “So the noise should be minimal.”