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As reported by nj.com, Atlantic City’s public safety director is stepping down after 17 months amid a dispute over the pension she received from her previous job. Christine Petersen’s last day will be Friday.

According to her resignation letter obtained by The Press of Atlantic City, Petersen said she did not want to re-enroll in the state’s Police and Firemen’s Retirement System, as she was told she must do to keep the job. The police union recently alerted the state that Petersen was wrongfully receiving a pension from her former job as a lieutenant in the Jersey City Police Department.

Petersen took the Atlantic City job one month after retiring instead of waiting six months. The state ruled last month she was not entitled to approximately $105,000 in payment. Petersen is appealing the decision.

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As reported by nj.com, the state must pay thousands of corrections officers back pay for their participation in a pilot program that last 10 years beyond its experimental phase, a Superior Court judge ruled. If the ruling is allowed to stand, the state will be responsible for millions of dollars in compensation for new corrections officers whom the court said worked under a job title that did not officially exist from 1999 to 2009 during a 14-week training period.   

The dispute centers on a program the state began in January 1998 establishing the pay and training for newly hired corrections employees. Previously, new hires, who were classified as corrections officer recruits, were trained for 14 weeks while they worked at correctional facilities for a regular salary. Under the pilot program, new hires worked under the title student/trainee. The first 12 weeks of training took place at the State Corrections Officer Training Academy in Sea Girt, and the final two weeks were held at a correctional facility.  During that 14-week period, they earned a stipend of no more than $300 a week. That student/trainee title was allowed to exist for 10 years even though the state Department of Personnel did not certify it until 2009.

The corrections officers union, Policemen’s Benevolent Association Local 105, five corrections officers sued in 2009, contending that as a pilot program, that arrangement was only valid for a year and after that the state was required to adopt a rule making the arrangement permanent. However, the state claimed it did not have to adopt the pilot program to make it legal beyond its first year. An appellate court panel in 2009 disagreed and permitted the case to continue.

On July 12, Superior Court Judge Douglas Hurd ruled the state had breached its implied contract with the union by not formally adopting the program and had to pay up. In a subsequent ruling issued Friday, Hurd said the case could be handled as a class action so that the corrections officers do not have to sue individually.

The pay differential could be from a couple hundred to several hundred per officer because the pay for new hires had increased over the past decade. In 2004, for example, the new hires earned the $300 weekly stipend during those 14 weeks when they should have been paid $766 a week. About 4,300 corrections officers are entitled to the back pay.

Local 105 President Trent Norman said he hopes to see the case resolved soon. “The judge made a wise decision,” he said. “I hope we will prevail a little further. The department (of corrections) has been dealing with this for some time.”

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As reported by nj.com, New Jersey’s public worker pension and health benefits increases should be revoked for state judges because they unconstitutionally slash their salaries and undermine judicial independence, a state Superior Court judge claims in a lawsuit filed Thursday.

The complaint, filed by Superior Court Judge Paul DePascale, who sits in Hudson County, is the first legal challenge to the landmark health and benefits law enacted last month. State public employee unions angered by the changes are also vowing to go to court. 

The complaint says the law runs counter to the part of the state constitution that says the salaries of the Supreme Court justices and Superior Court judges “shall not be diminished during their term of appointment.” “It diminishes the salary of all justices and judges appointed before the enactment of the subject legislation during their term of appointment and, by doing so, unconstitutionally and adversely (affects) the public and the independence of the judiciary,” DePascale’s attorney wrote.

Set by law, judicial salaries range from $165,000 for Superior Court trial judges, including DePascale, to $192,795 for Supreme Court Chief Justice Stuart Rabner. New Jersey now has 430 judges. DePascale, however, said in his court filing that his deductions will increase “steadily and dramatically” over the next seven years. His pension deductions would be hiked $14,849 by 2017, when he would be paying $18,137 into the pension system. DePascale also said his health benefits contribution would more than double to $5,230.86, based on state estimates that would allow different levels of coverage.   

The new law, to be phased in over seven years, will make judges’ pension contributions go from 3 to 12 percent of their annual salaries. The same law will boost the contributions of members of the Public Employee Retirement System from 5.5 percent of their salaries to 7.5 percent over that same period.

An initial hearing before Mercer County Assignment Judge Linda Feinberg is set for September 16. Pension changes took effect July 1. However, actual deductions start October 14, along with health contribution hikes.

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As reported by nj.com, three major public worker unions’ committees stopped donating to state lawmakers while the legislators, who face elections in November, were preparing to vote on a landmark overhaul of pensions and health benefits.

The Communications Workers of America, New Jersey Education Association, and AFSCME zeroed out what had been historically steady donations to candidates and to political parties between January and March, records show. The reform bills were introduced in February. Instead, unions waited until the benefits fight was nearly over, holding their resources to fund last-minute donations in late May and early June to individual politicians before the party primaries.

In June, weeks after the primary, eight Democrats in the Senate and fourteen in the Assembly sided with Republicans and voted yes on changes to government workers’ pensions and health benefits. The public employee unions who had opposed the measure promised retribution.   

Today, campaign finance reports covering donations from April through June, records that will cover the final union donations before the primary, are scheduled to be released. Reports made public on Tuesday, however, showed that the Democratic State Committee received no contributions from the CWA, NJEA, and AFSCME.

Union heads say the pensions and benefits bill passage prompted soul-searching, not only among members disheartened by lawmakers’ decisions, but among the union-led committees that have given more in recent years than all other PACs combined and now have to decide what to do with their money.

Law enforcement unions, who are also affected by the changes to pensions and health benefits, continued to make donations to individual candidates, the ELEC reports showed. The political committee led by the Fraternal Order of Police gave $9,650 in the first quarter, while state troopers gave $8,000. Between April and June, the committee for State Troopers Fraternal Association of New Jersey was the only public workers union to give to the Democratic State Committee, making a $2,600 donation. Further funding will be decided after unions complete their lists of endorsements for November in early August.

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As reported by nj.com, nearly all of the police officers who were laid off by the Newark Police Department last year have received checks for their unused vacation or compensatory time, nearly seven months after it was due.

The city has paid $142,551.90 in back pay to 133 former officers over the past two months, clearing most of the amount owed to the officers who were dismissed when Newark laid off 162 cops during a massive public works purge last year, according to Anne Torres, a city spokeswoman. The payments came months after James Stewart, Jr., vice president of Newark’s Fraternal Order of Police, and several former officers blasted the city for failing to pay them in an April Star-Ledger article.

Stewart said the officers should have been paid January 1, a month after they were laid off. The FOP also filed a complaint against the city with a state employment commission on June 10, three days before the first checks were issued. “It’s a shame they had to wait so long to be paid,” Stewart said. “But we’re moving forward though, and we hope the next step is they can be getting regular checks again when they’re rehired.” 

Torres said the payments were simply pending approval by police officials, and they were not in response to the union filing a grievance. Eighteen other officers are still owed money, but their checks were delayed because they did not file their paperwork on time, Torres said.

Newark’s Superior Officers Association also filed a labor grievance against the city earlier this year, alleging Newark owes eight retirees a combined $870,000. Torres said the matter will go before a judge in September.

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As reported by nj.com, municipalities hiring from a civil service list have to give a “legitimate” reason for skipping over a candidate in favor of one who placed lower in test ranking, the state Supreme Court ruled yesterday.

The 4-2 decision reverses a practice that labor experts said had given too much power to hiring authorities who in the past gave vague reasons for bypassing qualified candidates in favor of family members or those with political connections.

The court ruled in the case of Nicholas Foglio, who was skipped over for a firefighter’s position in Ocean City in 2007. In hiring three firefighters that year, the city picked a bartender and a lifeguard over Foglio, an eight-year volunteer fireman and emergency medical technician in several communities, despite his higher ranking on the civil service test.

The city initially cited the other candidates’ better educational background, but Foglio had the relevant firefighter educational experience. The city then said the other candidates performed better in their interviews, but city officials could not produce any notes or a list of standard questions they asked all the candidates. Finally, the city said the other candidates “best met the needs” of the fire department. The Civil Service Commission upheld the city’s finding, saying it was Foglio’s obligation to prove the city had improper motives, such as age or gender discrimination, in selecting others. An appeals court agreed.

However, the Supreme Court said a “boilerplate” reason is insufficient and the city was obligated to provide to the state Department of Personnel a statement of “legitimate” reasons why Foglio was not selected. “In the absence of such reasons, the appointment is presumably in violation of the principles of merit and fitness and it is the city that bears the burden of justifying its actions,” Justice Virginia Long wrote for the majority.

Dissenting Justices Jaynee LaVecchia and Helen Hoens said the ruling creates a “new rigidity” in hiring practices where the appointing authorities ought to have some discretion to appoint from the top three candidates.

Ocean City’s solicitor, Dorothy McCrosson, declined to comment on the case. She said many of those officials involved in the selection process in 2007 no longer work for the city. The city now has to decide whether to give Foglio a legitimate reason for why he was skipped or it has to give him a job on the fire department.

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As reported by nj.com, unions representing Jersey City municipal employees have filed an appeal with the state Civil Service Commission, challenging some 100 layoffs the administration has carried out so far this year.

The city changed titles of politically-connected employees to avoid laying them off, kept temporary employees on staff for longer than it is supposed to, and generally made it impossible for state officials to determine whether the city’s layoff plan was the result of good-faith efforts, the appeal alleges. The city has laid off nearly 100 workers this year and is scheduled to lay off an additional 16 workers in the next few weeks.

City officials have “been doing so many egregious things for years,” according to Chuck Carroll, president of the Jersey City Public Employee Inc. Local 246, one of three unions that filed the appeal. “They are like the gang that couldn’t shoot straight,” Carroll said of city officials.

The appeal doesn’t seem likely to save the jobs of any recently laid-off employees, according to a source that did not want to be identified.   The city defended the layoffs. “While difficult, the layoffs were necessary due to loss of revenue and were properly implemented for reasons of economy and efficiency and approved by the Civil Service Commission, pursuant to state statute,” said city spokeswoman Jennifer Morrill.

Morrill said she couldn’t comment further since the matter is now in litigation. But a city official who asked not to be named made it clear what the city thinks of Carroll’s allegations. “They’re false,” the official said. “They’re (unions members) upset, they’re angry, but they’re not pointing to any specific examples because there are none.” Carroll said he has plenty of examples he has submitted with the appeal.

According to Civil Service Commission spokesman Peter Lyden, the appeal will be sent to the Office of Administrative Law, where it will go before an OAL judge. After a hearing, the judge will forward a recommendation to the CSC, which will then make a final decision on the appeal. Since July 2010, 748 appeals similar to Jersey City’s have been filed with the CSC, Lyden said.

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As reported by nj.com, people who intentionally kill police dogs or dogs involved in search and rescue operations are now facing stiffer penalties in New Jersey.

Governor Chris Christie recently signed legislation that mandates minimum five-year prison terms, with no chance of parole, for such offenders, who also will face fines of up to $15,000. Previously, the maximum sentence they faced was just three to five years in prison.

The measure, named for a police dog killed in the line of duty last November, was overwhelmingly passed by the Assembly and Senate earlier this year. It then took effect immediately after Christie signed it late last month.  The legislation honors Schultz, a 3 ½ year old German Shepherd who served with the Gloucester Township police force.

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As reported by mycentraljersey.com, New Jersey’s new pension reform will save state and local governments millions of dollars now and billions of dollars over the ensuing decades. But then there is the hard part: actually paying the pension contributions for nearly 800,000 state government employees and retirees. Although New Jersey will have to pay less than it would have to without the changes, the state revenues still will have to grow by at least 3 percent a year simply to cover the added costs for increasing payments, a New Jersey Press Media analysis shows.   

Even if state revenues rise by 5 percent a year, state pension contributions still will consume nearly half of that extra revenue. That will put pressure on available funds for aid to schools, worker salaries and a host of social and other programs. Keith Brainard, research director for the National Association of State Retirement Administrators, said New Jersey’s big mistake was abandoning annual required contributions into the pension system in the late 1990s. “Once the money is gone, the revenue stream must be recreated,” he said. “They’ve taken a big step with the reforms, but ultimately they will have to find the money to make the contribution.”

State pension contributions must ramp up to $5 billion a year by fiscal year 2018, even under the new reforms. This year’s $468 million bill will double to $1 billion by next July. Because the state had largely missed its pension payments for more than a decade, the so-called unfunded liability for long-term state workers pensions had grown to $37.1 billion last year, along with a $16.7 billion liability for local government pensions. The annual contribution to meet that bill grew too. 

If the state were to pay all it should into the pension system this fiscal year, which began July 1, it would have to pay $3.3 billion. That’s an impossibly large number that would require widespread layoffs, aid cuts, and tax increases to meet. New Jersey did, however, pass a state law that requires it to pay one-seventh of what it needs this year, and increase that until it reaches the full amount in seven years. So in fiscal year 2016, only four years hence, that means the state will pay $3.4 billion into its pension funds. As if that were not enough, Governor Chris Christie’s proposed transportation infrastructure plan calls for the state to use $605 million in the state budget that year.

If state revenues grow by 5 percent a year, about average in normal times of economic expansion, then those two items alone will take up more than half of expected increase. Should tax revenues slip to 3 percent annually, pension contributions and transportation funding alone would soak up all new revenue. That would leave little or nothing for worker salary increases, aid to schools and municipalities and a host of social programs.

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As reported by nj.com, four years after a State Police union leader, David Jones, tangled with radio talk show host Craig Carton, the sizzle has long gone out of the feud. Yet, the labor dispute it spawned lives on.

Jones faced a five-day suspension for bringing personal information about Carton to a news conference after the shock jock criticized troopers on his New Jersey 101.5 FM radio show. But Jones never served the suspension, and he filed a labor complaint saying the state was trying to silence him. The complaint has never been acted on by the Public Employment Relations Commission, which handles disputes between labor and management.

In a twist, the complaint has languished for so long that Jones is now a member of the commission with which it was filed. He was nominated by Governor Chris Christie last month. Christine Lucarelli-Carneiro, the commission’s deputy general counsel, said that members routinely recuse themselves from cases in which they have a stake.

The complaint, not yet closed, may never need to reach the full commission, which includes labor and management advocates. Lucarelli-Carneiro said the state and the union indicated early on that the dispute could be settled amicably.

The labor dispute stems from a 2007 feud between Jones, the outspoken president of the State Troopers Fraternal Association, and Carton, an acerbic radio talker who was one of two “Jersey Guys” on 101.5 known for their irreverence. Carton and his co-host, Ray Rossi, accused the State Police of planning a “ticket blitz” to harass motorists. Enraged, Jones called a news conference at the Statehouse to denounce the accusation as false. He brought a piece of paper with Carton’s home address and other personal information.

Jones halted his campaign at the request of State Police Superintendent Rick Fuentes. But the state attorney general at the time, Stuart Rabner, said Jones’ actions were inappropriate and undermined the State Police. Fuentes responded by issuing a five-day suspension to Jones, who wants it rescinded on the grounds that the disciplinary action infringes on his right to represent his union members.

“The wrongful actions taken by the public employer are retaliatory in nature,” the complaint says. ‘The actions are clearly intended to discourage union representatives in the exercise of rights guaranteed by the (New Jersey Employer-Employee Relations Act).”

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As reported by nj.com, crime in Camden is on the rise following deep cuts to the police force earlier this year. An analysis of crime data by The Courier-Post of Cherry Hill finds violent crime was up 13 percent from January 1 through June 20 compared with the same period a year ago.

The rates were also higher than in the first half of 2008 and 2009. Assaults with guns have been particularly high, up 60 percent from last year. The newspaper also found nonviolent crime up by 21 percent so far in 2011.

Experts caution not to blame just the layoffs, which shed nearly half the city’s police force amid a budget crisis in January. Since then, some officers have been hired back.

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As reported by nj.com, labor leaders in New Jersey, still licking their wounds after losing a fight over pension and health benefits in the Democratic Legislature last month, are being told a new anti-union bill does not stand a chance. 

The leader of the state Assembly told The Associated Press that New Jersey won’t become a battleground over allowing public and private sector workers with union shops to opt out of joining or paying dues. “This legislation is dead on arrival,” Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver said of the right-to-work bill introduced last week. “This type of move may play elsewhere, but, quite simply, this anti-worker bill will see the light of day.”

There are 22 right-to-work states, where labor unions can’t force workers to be members or pay dues. Most are in southern and western states, but they’re gaining interest in other places, especially states where Republicans control the Legislature and the governor’s office. In all, 42 right-to-work bills are pending in 24 states, according to the national Conference of State Legislatures.  

“It really weakens unions, that’s what it’s designed to do,” said Jeffrey Keefe, an associate professor at Rutgers University’s School of Management and Labor Relations, who has been watching as momentum ebbs and flows for a technique many view as undercutting organized labor’s influence. “Union dues is another name for tax. Could we imagine the quality of our school system and fire departments if paying taxes was voluntary?”

New Jersey’s bill would affect public workers. The sponsor of the right-to-work measure, Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon, doesn’t view his legislation as piling on. Still, he quietly introduced the bill prohibiting union dues from being deducted from the paychecks of public employees amid the distraction of a scathing partisan battle over the state budget.

O’Scanlon said workers who believe they benefit by forcing employers to pay them more are mistaken. He said the opt-out legislation helps control building costs and, therefore, encourages economic growth. It also fits with Governor Chris Christie’s anti-union mantra.

Christie, who’s become a national GOP icon known for tough talk and fiscal restraint, has been unrestrained in his criticism of unions, particularly the state’s powerful public teachers union. The New Jersey Education Association, which recently spent $2 million in six weeks on anti-Christie ads, has been the recipient of many a Christie tirade, often for spending union dues teachers are required to pay to finance favored candidates or attack political foes.

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As reported by nj.com, Attorney General Paula Dow, flanked by county prosecutors and state officials, formally unveiled a group of reforms designed to eliminate the abuse of anabolic steroids in New Jersey’s law enforcement ranks.

The measures, recommended by a panel Dow formed in December, pave the way for police departments to randomly test officers for steroids, increase safeguards in taxpayer-funded prescription drug plans, and heighten scrutiny of physicans who improperly prescribe steroids and human growth hormone. The reforms follow a series of Star-ledger reports about the use of steroids in law enforcement. The newspaper found at least 248 officers and firefighters obtained the substances from an unscrupulous Jersey City physician, Joseph Colao. In most cases, they used their government benefits to pay for drugs that ran as much as $1,100 a month. Taxpayers picked up the bill, which amounted to millions of dollars. 

“The investigative series done by The Newark Star-Ledger highlighted the damage that can be done when a doctor’s actions go unchecked and individuals become aware of the opportunity to obtain medications they may not be entitled to,” Dow said at a press conference in Hamilton. “The cost is borne not just by taxpayers, but in the erosion of faith people have in those who protect and serve. This is unacceptable.”

Among the initiatives, state guidelines on drug-testing will be rewritten to explicitly authorize departments to randomly test their officers for steroids. The guidelines will also allow chiefs or prosecutors to test officers if they have a “reasonable suspicion” of steroid use or as a condition of fitness-for-duty evaluations.

Other measures include:

·         Any officer who tests positive will be required to provide a note from a physician confirming that the use of steroids or human growth hormone is for a legitimate medical condition and that the officer is fit for duty.

·         Departments are encouraged to require officers to self-report prescriptions for anabolic steroids and human growth hormone based on the authority to determine fitness for duty.

.     Dow will recommend prescriptions for steroids or growth hormone be filled largely by mail order through Medco, the state’s pharmacy benefits manager. The provision is meant to help Medco spot potential abuses.

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As reported by nj.com, two days after a tirade by Senate President Stephen Sweeney against Governor Chris Christie was published on the front page of The Star-Ledger, Sweeney refused to walk back his comments. “Could I have gone over the top with my language? Probably, I did,” said Sweeney. “But I don’t apologize for it. The governor was wrong to hurt people.”

Sweeney was responding to Christie’s line-item veto of the Democrats’ $30.6 billion budget that slashed programs for the poor, disabled, abused children, student financial assistance, and aid for struggling cities-cuts that went beyond the original budget Christie proposed in February. It also decreased funding for legislative staffing. In The Sunday Star-Ledger, Sweeney called Christie, among other things, a “rotten bastard,” “a punk,” and “Mr. Potter from ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’ “

Sweeney said the vetoes were personal for him because one of the programs cut was the Early Intervention System, which provides therapy for developmentally disabled and delayed babies and toddlers. Sweeney’s daughter, Lauren, was born with Down Syndrome.

Sweeney said Christie called him Sunday after his comments appeared in the paper, but he would not take the call because he felt neither of them were in a state to talk calmly. “The Governor believes the language used was inappropriate and disrespectful to the office, but he continues to stand ready to work with Senator Sweeney and the Legislature in a bipartisan manner to get things done for the people of New Jersey,” Christie spokeswoman Maria Comella said Tuesday.

Sweeney plans to schedule a Senate vote to override Christie’s vetoes, but cannot until the governor’s office files the vetoes with the Legislature. After that, they have to wait three days before they can vote. “This is about taking money from poor people and putting it back in your own pocket,” said Sweeney, who said Republican lawmakers need to buck the governor and vote to override the vetoes. “My colleagues will have the opportunity to do the right thing,” he said.

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