By: centraljersey.com
"Doing more with less" is a recurring theme these days for families and businesses. It’s also true for New Jersey’s state colleges and universities. Step one is figuring out what you’re spending in the first place. In the case of the state colleges, their workers compensation costs are a surprisingly large expense. Fortunately, the governor and the legislature are offering the institutions the authority to help themselves, while preserving and perhaps enhancing their workers’ safety.
Between fiscal year 2000 and fiscal year 2009, the state colleges and universities’ workers compensation claims increased over 145 percent from $1.5 million to $3.7 million. These nine institutions are currently part of the state government’s system that covers all state employees, and state colleges and universities think they can do better. In the face of significant appropriations cuts and tuition caps over the past several years, they have a great incentive to reduce these costs.
One of the bills in the governor’s "tool kit" would authorize the state colleges and universities to establish a joint-insurance fund – JIF – to purchase and administer workers compensation coverage. The legislation is bipartisan, sponsored by Senators Teresa Ruiz and Tom Kean, Jr., and Assemblyman John DiMaio. It passed the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee on Aug. 16, and the institutions hope it will reach the governor’s desk this fall.
The state colleges and universities welcome the responsibilities, and understand the challenges, that come with administering a JIF for workers compensation. That is because they will gain:
– Greater ability to scrutinize claims and determine the causes – and perhaps develop ways to prevent – injuries.
– Clearer predictability over costs. It is difficult to budget for workers compensation costs when there is little control over claims. The state often settles cases that result in payments that the state colleges believe, with greater analysis and litigation when necessary, they can prevent or reduce.
– Improved coordination of return-to-work programs and medical-cost containment programs, which will benefit employees.
To be sure, starting up a JIF will have some costs. Expenses include administrative and legal costs to establish the fund; hiring a third-party administrator to manage the program day to day; and contracting with counsel to handle litigated claims.
In the long run, however, joint-insurance funds are an established, respected way of administering workers compensation insurance in New Jersey. Municipalities and the county colleges have them.
The county colleges, in fact, provide the model for our JIF legislation. They have had the authority to administer their workers compensation coverage under a JIF since 1985, and their program has been an unqualified success.
The state itself would benefit from authorizing the state colleges and universities to maintain their own workers compensation program. The state would no longer need to administer the institutions’ claims, and it could devote more resources to state agencies with greater risk profiles.
New Jersey’s state colleges and universities need the flexibility to examine and control their expenses. Gaining authority over workers compensation is a small but important step in that direction.
Michael W. Klein, director Government and Legal Affairs New Jersey Association of State Colleges and Universities
12th DC needs Scott Sipprelle
To the editor:
Addressing all the residents of the 12th Congressional District so dismally represented by Rep. Rush Holt. What has he done for the district during his almost 10 years in Washington?
He has been paid close to $2 million, invested in a great retirement plan and participated in a fantastic, for-government-officials-only health care plan.
He has routinely voted to keep all of us at a fiscal and health disadvantage while our earning capacity has gone down, down, down. Yet our costs have gone up, up, up!
Isn’t it time we flushed Rush and put a far better self-made man in Washington to handle our affairs? Absolutely, yes. And there is such a man ready, willing and able to get New Jersey’s 12th CD, the state and America back on the path to smaller, more efficient and people-oriented government.
Scott Sipprelle is that man. His website, www.supportscott2010.com , presents eight vital areas where major improvements can be made. I know he got my attention with his intelligent approach to getting America back on track. Treat yourself to a look at the site.
Thomas E. Davis Monroe
‘Disgusted’ with negative attacks on Rep. Holt
To the editor:
I am thoroughly disgusted with the negativity that is being spewed at Democratic candidates, most of which is passed around in sound bites by the radical far right because, unfortunately, some people prefer to get their political education that way rather than take the time to research the truth.
The truth is that the same people who are crying about the U. S. government increasing debt now, were totally silent while President Bush and his administration fed us lies about Iraq and proceeded to lead us into a war that cost this country trillions and trillions of dollars pushing this country into a black hole. Believe me, as I sat there wondering what the war was costing us, I listened very carefully and never once heard the word debt mentioned. It was conveniently swept under the carpet.
The far right extremists were also silent when big business and Wall Street were allowed to trample the citizens of Main Street; when nothing was done to stop banks doing just about anything to make a buck, even if they knew their practices were not sustainable and the bubble would burst. It was only when the current administration took the reins that the far right woke up and are now worried about debt, most of which was a result of the war in Iraq and poor policy prior to President Obama’s election.
It also never ceases to amaze me that these same people were OK with policy that sent our tax dollars to Iraq, but now that we have a president who is spending tax dollars in our own country, they think that is wrong.
Another letter called the health care bill "an unprecedented intrusion into the way you live your life." Really? I find that interesting also. I’ll tell you what an "unprecedented intrusion into the way you live your life" is. Have you forgotten the Bush Administration claiming the right to listen in on your private phone conversations in the name of national security?
I don’t remember hearing the hate mongers complaining about that "intrusion" and violation of the Constitution. Now they feel a sudden urge to protect the Constitution by voting for a candidate who will take us backwards.
I will vote for Rush Holt because he is a true "citizen representative," having voted for "all of the above." I hate to think of our country’s fate had the Bush Administration had one more year in office. I will not forget the condition this country was in when President Bush’s term expired and the mess President Obama inherited. Nobody should. I, for one, do not want to go back!
Arlene Jacey Montgomery

