Clockwise from top: Gov. Chris Christie addresses the audience during a town hall-style meeting held at Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 2179 in Port Monmouth, Middletown, Jan. 26. Christie hosted the meeting, which included a question-and-answer period. Audience members, including Sean Kelly of Middletown (l) ask Christie a question. More photos at gmnews.com. Gov. Chris Christie addressed the concerns of residents point-blank on two critical issues — the public employee salary cap and education reform — while promoting his larger reform agenda at a town hall meeting at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post No. 2179 in Middletown on Jan. 26.
Sitting behind Christie as he spoke to an audience of some 350-400 were Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, Sen. Joseph Kyrillos (R-13th District), Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon (R-12th District), Assemblyman Samuel Thompson (R- 13th District), and local officials including Freeholder John Curley, Middletown Deputy Mayor Pamela Brightbill, Committeeman Gerard Scharfenberger and Holmdel Mayor Serena DiMaso, among others.
One resident, who identified himself as a public employee and member of the police and fire retirement system, questioned Christie’s decision to cap public employee raises and increase their health benefit contribution.
“Witha2percentcaponaraiseperyear, how am I going to afford $8,000 a year to pay for health benefits?” he asked.
In December, Christie’s interest arbitration reforms for public employees set limits on raises to 2 percent, and his proposed benefits reforms would gradually increase employee contributions to 30 percent by 2014.
“You’re not,” Christie responded. “You’re going to have to make choices about medical plans and have more choices than just the three choices you have now.”
“You’re going to have to make choices just like everybody else will have to make choices in this economy.”
Christie went on to explain his reasoning behind the 2 percent salary raise cap.
“What the 2 percent cap is intended to do is deal with what have been runaway salary costs. … We can’t afford it anymore.”
According to Christie, $3 out of every $4 spent in municipalities is spent on labor.
Christie said that the recent sweeping police layoffs in Camden and Newark could have been reduced or avoided had the unions agreed to concessions.
“This is not 10 years ago. This is not a booming economy with 5, 6, 7 percent growth. We have no inflation. We cannot afford this stuff anymore,” he said.
“I am sorry that I’m the guy that has to be here at the time when the party’s over.”
Christie said it was unrealistic for public employees to expect significant annual raises when most private sector employees, who are paying for those raises through taxes, have not received raises themselves in years.
“It stinks, but it’s reality, and no one can be shielded from this reality anymore — not police officers, not firefighters, not teachers,” he said.
The 2 percent cap sunsets in three years, Christie said, which will force Trenton to reevaluate its necessity.
“If in fact the economy is much better, and inflation is higher, then we’re going to have to revisit the cap,” he said.
A Middletown resident and wife of a teacher broached another of the governor’s reform targets: public education.
She said that Christie’s perceived attacks on the teachers and the pension system concerned her. “I agree with the cap on salaries,” she said, “but I think that the pension is a contract and you as an attorney should know that.”
Christie’s proposed pension reforms aim to reduce New Jersey’s pension underfunding from $54 billion to $23 billion by 2041 by increasing the retirement age to 65 and employee contributions to the fund to 8.5 percent.
Christie said he was not attacking teachers, but the teachers’ union.
“I want to pay the good and great teachers more than we’re paying them now. Know why we can’t? Because the union protects the lousy teachers,” he said.
“The tenure system now is not there to protect your husband, the tenure system is there to protect the worst.”
Had the teachers’ union agreed to concessions,
Christie said, it would have significantly reduced the state’s $820 million education funding deficit.
“I went to the teachers’ union and said, ‘Freeze your pay for one year and every teacher put 1.5 percent of salary toward health benefits and we could close $750 million of that $820 million gap,’ ” he said.
Christie said this request was what started what some perceive as his attacks against teachers.
“This is the truth; it’s indisputable. The numbers are numbers, and I’m trying to fix this so your husband has a pension when he retires,” Christie told the questioner.
An independent study, Christie said, predicted that 11 states, including New Jersey, are in danger of having their pension funds being broke by 2020.
“I got sent here to fix some awful ugly problems, and Iwant to do it in away that gives your husband a better future, that gives him the opportunity to get paid more as a teacher that performs well, and so he has some pension when he retires rather than a bankrupt one,” he said
The governor also discussed efforts under way to improve New Jersey’s business climate and attract businesses from out of state, and was critical of the Legislature for not acting on his proposed reforms.
Christie had a message for those who would be affected by his proposed reforms.
“I understand why you’re frustrated, I understand why you’re angry, and I understand why you feel cheated.
“I understand all of that, but here’s the thing: a whole bunch of politicians who came before me on the local level and on the state level made you promises that they couldn’t keep, and knew that when they made them.
“The only thing I don’t understand is, why are you angry at me? I’m the one that’s telling you the truth.”