Surya Makkar of Springfield asks Gov. Chris Christie a question during his Dec. 21 town hall meeting in Spotswood. A lot of issues in government are complicated, but this one, Gov. Chris Christie said, is simple:
Sick days should be for when you are sick.
During a town hall meeting at the Knights of Columbus in Spotswood on Dec. 21, Christie highlighted the need to do away with unused sick-day payouts for retiring public employees, calling the payout system a “scam.” “If you are fortunate enough not to get sick, the payment you get is not being sick,” the governor said. “And you should get on your knees and thank God that you weren’t sick.”
The payouts, Christie said, could be massive and are sometimes referred to by recipients as a “boat check,” meaning it is sometimes used to buy a boat upon retirement. In Parsippany, Christie said, four police officers retired and the township had to write them checks that collectively totaled over $900,000.
Pastor Hillary Johnson of the Trinity United Methodist Church, Spotswood, poses a question to the governor. The cumulative sick and vacation day liabilities for public workers in New Jersey total over $825 million, the governor said.
His solution: No more sick-day payouts going forward. Christie said Democrats in the Legislature recommended that the payout be capped at $15,000, a measure he vetoed. Democrats then cut that amount to $7,500.
“I felt like I was buying a car,” he said of the offers. “I have compromised on a lot of stuff. I am not compromising on this one.
“Zero means zero,” he added.
For Spotswood, Christie said, the sickday payouts aren’t a problem, and the town faces no liability.
Mayor Thomas Barlow said that the borough took on the issue in 1984, capping sick-day payouts at $12,000. Council President Curt Stollen added that Spotswood has an account set aside so that when someone goes to retire, the borough doesn’t have to find the equivalent of a tax point to pay off the sick days that employee didn’t use.
Christie discusses sick-day payout reform during his meeting at the Spotswood Knights of Columbus Hall. The Spotswood school district has taken similar action, Board of Education President Donna Faulkenberry said, but the board supports the governor’s push to end sick-day payouts altogether.
“From a fiscal standpoint it just makes sense, and that’s why we have already capped it,” she said. “If we can get it to zero, all the better.”
Other area towns aren’t as fortunate, Christie said. As of today, in New Brunswick, he said, sick-leave payouts will cost each household taxpayer $1,330; in Edison, $352 per household; and in Old Bridge, $348. He said that there should be an across-the-board rule for dealing with sick pay.
“There is no logical reason for this,” Christie said. “This is a giveaway. This is a political giveaway to buy your votes.”
But state Assemblyman Jon Wisniewski (D-Middlesex), in a later interview with the Suburban, said that Christie is being “disingenuous” in his rhetoric about sick-day payouts. For one, Wisniewski said, these payouts are negotiated by local officials and their workers, with employees sometimes taking concessions like lower salary increases in exchange for the payouts in their collective bargaining agreements.
Further, he said, there are constitutional issues in taking away previously approved sick-day payments for retirees.
As such, Wisniewski said this is another example of the governor’s “showmanship” and lack of compromise on major issues.
“The governor is not engaged in a legitimate policy dispute here,” Wisniewski said. “He wants to have a bloody shirt to wave around to try and create a contrast about what he is trying to do to save the universe and what everyone else is trying to do to stop him from doing it.”