"Stop playing three-card monty with our retirement fund. The economic games with the lives of our members must stop here and now!"Anthony Miskowski, CWA Local 1033.
Would you trust this fat Chris-ape with your money?
Christie's pension plan sparks debate at NJ State Investment Council
By Salvador Rizzo/The Star-Ledger on May 28, 2014
The 14-member council advises Christie and state officials on the best ways to invest the $78.8 billion in New Jersey's pension fund — although it doesn't recommend how much the governor should put into the fund every year.
At a council meeting in Trenton today, about 30 public workers and supporters showed up to oppose Christie's plan to take the money designated for pensions to balance his ailing budgets.
Christie has described it as an emergency move to plug a budget shortfall of $2.7 billion in the current and incoming fiscal years. The Republican governor says he would rather cut the pension contributions than raise taxes or cut funding for schools or hospitals.
Over the two-year period, under Christie's plan, the state still would pump $1.38 billion into the pension system. But that's a far cry from the $3.8 billion he proposed at first, and much less than what financial experts say is needed to be fully funding state workers' retirement plans.
State Democrats and public-worker unions have reacted with anger, charging that the governor is breaking a promise from 2010 to increase steadily the state's yearly payments to the beleaguered pension system and bring it back to financial stability after years of neglect by previous governors.
A follow-up law Christie signed in 2011 promised the higher payments in exchange for shifting more retirement costs to public workers, raising their retirement age to 65, and freezing their cost-of-living adjustments.
Two unions, the New Jersey Education Association and the Communications Workers of America, have said they will file a lawsuit challenging Christie's move.
The debate, which has taken hold of the Statehouse over the last month, found its way into the Investment Council today, even as members said it had no role in deciding how much money the pension fund gets each year.
Robert Grady, a venture capitalist at Cheyenne Capital and a close adviser to Christie, who chairs the Investment Council, said it was not up to him and the other members to decide how much money to pour into the pension fund.
"It will be less money into the fund," Grady said of Christie's plan. "What we do do is try to manage the investments as best we can." The council's role, he said, is "simply to maximize returns while minimizing risk — with whatever capital we're entrusted."
"We can't control what's being put into this fund," added another member, Charles Dolan.
Adam Liebtag, a member of the council representing the CWA, said it should still do more to warn Christie about the long-term dangers of his move. The Investment Council serves the same advisory role for the state that a financial planner or retirement adviser would for an individual, he said.
"The adviser should also go that next step and say, 'Look, the plan you came in with, I can't accomplish that plan ... because you're putting in $1 instead of $100,'" Liebtag said.
"This council should not be agnostic on the amount of the pension contribution. ... This is the investment plan we put together, and the state of New Jersey is not fulfilling its obligation."
Liebtag added that New Jersey has been seeing healthy returns on its pension investments lately and should try to reap as much as possible while the economic climate is still favorable.
From July 2013 through April 2014, the state had realized a 12.6 percent rate of return on its pension investments, according to the state Treasury Department.
Grady said the fund "has achieved outstanding returns." To get the economy going, he suggested, would take efforts to "keep the tax burden manageable and, if possible, lower."
Anthony Miskowski, an official with CWA Local 1033 in Trenton, was the only member of the public to speak, and he opposed Christie's plan. "The economic games with the lives of our members must stop here and now," he said. "Stop playing three-card monty with our retirement fund."
The legislative overhaul of the pension system was considered one of Christie's biggest achievements in Trenton — until the budget crisis came to light last month and Christie blew his own pension plans off track to solve it.
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