Just after 9:30 tonight, the Assembly Budget Committee, followed in short order by the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee, voted out A-2818, sponsored by Assembly Speaker Joe Roberts.

Final language on A-2818 was hammered out by Speaker Roberts, Senate President Richard Codey, and leaders of both houses. A-2818 supersedes S-1962, S-1964, and S-1969, none of which was voted on by either committee. Those three bills were on a list of 13 proposed bills that NJEA was originally facing in this fight.

As a result, Senator Stephen Sweeney's proposal to calculate pensions by using the highest 5 years' salary instead of the highest 3 is DEAD. Senator Barbara Buono's proposal for a minimum 30-hour per week requirement for participation in either the TPAF or PERS pension funds is DEAD. Senator Buono's proposal to require employees to choose only one job for the purpose of calculating pensions is DEAD. We also protected the post-retirement medical benefits of part-time employees, which were threatened by both of Senator Buono's bills.

In short, NONE of the original legislation that launched this epic battle will become law.

For the record, NJEA opposes A-2818. Here's what it contains: it increases the retirement age for all future employees from 60 to 62. And it raises the annual salary threshold for pension eligibility for all new employees to $7,500 per year, adjusted annually by the CPI or 4 percent, whichever is LESS. In addition, members earning less than $7,500, but more than $500 (TPAF) or $1,500 (PERS) will be eligible for the state's defined contribution pension plan.

NJEA believes neither of these changes is necessary or appropriate. However, given where we started in this struggle, we believe this outcome represents a clear victory over Senators Sweeney, Buono, and others who sponsored or vigorously supported the original three bills. They include Senators Kevin O'Toole, Thomas Kean, Jr., "Kip" Bateman, Nicholas Scutari, and Raymond Lesniak.

Today, according to reports from 35 sites across New Jersey, more than 10,000 NJEA members - and probably many more than that, based on only partial data - turned out to demonstrate against 30 members of the New Jersey Senate who either supported the three bills we ended up defeating, or were undecided about them. There is no question that NJEA turned the tide against these proposals, which would have reduced or eliminated the pensions of countless NJEA members in the future.

Again: there will be NO pension reductions as a result of A-2818.

This has been an extraordinary experience for all of us at NJEA. We conducted highly effective lobby days and a major demonstration in Trenton on June 12. Only five days later, almost 1,000 NJEA local association presidents, county leaders, retired educators, DA and Executive Committee members, and staff met in an unprecedented war council to plan today's events. For more than a week, we blitzed the state with a massive TV, radio, and print advertising campaign informing legislators and the public that they were targeting the WRONG people with their trio of ill-conceived legislative proposals.

Then, today, more members than we ever could have imagined turned out in location after location, from Cape May Courthouse to Sparta, to stand up for the rights of untold generations of future members, and to make the case that all NJEA members have a right to a dignified retirement.

Let me close by being crystal clear on two points.

First, this was NEVER about "pension reform," because there was NOTHING in any of those three bills - or in A-2818 - that addressed the documented abuses that continue to drain our pension systems every day. This was about pension REDUCTION, and NJEA and its members won the battle to stop that effort in its tracks. When I testified before both committees tonight, I told members of the Senate and Assembly that "our members did not create this problem. If you don't end pension abuse for good, this whole process will have been a cruel charade. You will have failed - once again - to address true pension reform or the abolition of abuses that are occurring every day."

That's a fact, and thanks to everything NJEA and its members did over the past couple of weeks, the entire Legislature knows it.

My final point is this: we will remember the legislators who were with us in this fight, and we will remember those who were not. Those legislators, who mounted an unnecessary and craven attack on NJEA members and their pensions; who treated us with contempt and disrespect; and who sought to scapegoat us for their own failings, will soon come to understand that there is a price to pay for that kind of behavior.

I salute each and every one of you. We did not get everything we wanted out of this confrontation, but we won a decisive battle against a group of legislators who, for reasons only they will ever know, decided that NJEA members were the problem. On that point, there is no longer any question.

Joyce
Joyce Powell, President, NJEA