Pensions

Republicans on the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee say they will try to block Governor Corzine's attempt to add to state's huge pension deficit.

Our children and our grandchildren will pay if we allow Governor Corzine to delay more pension contributions. They shouldn't be required to pay for our governor's fiscal irresponsibility.

GROWING PENSION SHORTFALL SHOWS NEED
FOR GREATER-THAN-EVER SCRUTINY OF INVESTMENTS

(14th Legislative District) - Following yesterday's announcement that the state's public employee pension fund has lost more than 25 percent of its value over the current fiscal year, Assemblywoman Linda Greenstein and Assemblyman Wayne DeAngelo said the numbers show the need for pension officials to take a more conservative approach when handling the $58 billion portfolio.

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U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie says that Wayne Bryant's conviction will wake up the state pension board

A story by the Gloucester County Times' Trish Graber must have been a real sphincter squeezing moment for more than a few politically active lawyers: "The conviction of former Sen. Wayne Bryant rang the alarm on public-sector attorneys who sent subordinates to perform their work, a practice the defense argued was common throughout New Jersey." Especially since outgoing U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie says that the Bryant trial "has woken up the pension board.... I think the pension board is going to be much more active in looking at these pension applications .. If you did it in a serial way like Wayne Bryant did, you should go to the pension board now and make good."

Graber suggests that among the first pension cases to be reviewed will be those of former State Sen. Raymond Zane and Gloucester County Democratic Chairman Michael Angelini, who "were key to the defense's argument that the practice of Bryant sending associates to perform his work at the Gloucester County Board of Social Services, and taking the pension credits, was common."   Zane, who served in the Senate from 1973 until his defeat in 2001, collects a pension based on nine part-time public jobs.

Senator Joseph Pennacchio says it's vital to open government and the fiscal health of the state that members of the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee ask hard questions on Monday about the state's misguided investment in now-bankrupt Lehman Bros.

Floats Idea to Let Towns Skip Pension Payments, Expect State to Do the Same

Senator Kevin O'Toole (R-40), a member of the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee, responded to reports that Governor Jon Corzine will offer municipalities the opportunity to defer up to $500 million of pension payments that they would otherwise need to make next April, requiring those payments to be paid over the following three years.

Other pension funds are suing Lehman Brothers to recover lost investment income. Where is New Jersey's lawsuit?

State Senator Joe Pennacchio asks how two top Lehman executives and one former Lehman executive on New Jersey's investment council could have let the state lose more than $115 million in three months investing in the now-bankrupt Wall Street investment bank.

Unelected officials aren't telling the public how they lost more than $115 million of pension money. It's time for the governor to step in on behalf of workers, retirees and taxpayers. The governor needs to investigate and fully report how the investment in Lehman Brothers was made.

The possibility of litigation shouldn't block rapid and full disclosure of what led up to the state's disastrous investment in Lehman Brothers.