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Yet another lie; MVC Fees Not Going for Trooper Classes or New Helicopters as Promised

From our friends at Millennium Radio:

Motor vehicle registration fees were raised by $3 in 2006. The increase has produced about $29 million per year and was supposed to be used for new State Police Medivac helicopters and more state troopers. Thus far, not a single new helicopter has been purchased and there is no state trooper class planned for the upcoming fiscal year.

"This is why people are so against fee increases and charging things because the money doesn't go where it's supposed to be," says State Senator Steve Sweeney. "We were promised these classes would be funded. It's another broken promise……we promised the State of New Jersey when we charged these fees that we were going to put State Police on the ground to protect our communities and we're not doing that."

"I do believe that we can survive for a year without getting an additional State Police class," says State Attorney General Anne Milgram. She explains the State Police should ideally have as many as 3,400 troopers, but the agency expects to lose 200 troopers per year to retirement. Milgram admits, "We don't have what I would say is a lot of cushion right now."

Budget language that can supersede state law diverted the money to other purposes. Milgram says when the legislature adopts a budget that allows for the money to be used elsewhere, what they're really doing is amending a previous law. She says lawmakers could still pass a budget that dedicates the MVC fees to the original purposes.

Milgram says the State has been seeking manufacturer bids for as many as five new helicopters since March, but estimates it will take 18 months to deliver the helicopters once a contract is awarded. The nine State Police emergency medical helicopters currently in use are designed to fly accident victims to hospitals, but according to Milgram they've each been grounded an average of 81 days since July 1 for maintenance and repair.

Treasury Department spokesman Tom Vincz says, "Any changes to the original statutory purpose have been done through authorizing statute, and surcharge revenues have been used to support the state police." He points out that the registration fees collected have been used to buy 250 new state police vehicles and to pay for State Police salaries, medical helicopter repairs and general state expenses.

State Trooper NCO Association president Dennis Hallion says, "Do more with less now becomes do more with nothing…..I'm always concerned about how we're going to continue to fill the need for bodies for troopers that are out there."

"It's a dedication," says State Senator Kevin O'Toole, "I think that word speaks for itself…..it is just troubling that things are not as they appear."

New Jersey by the Ugly Numbers Corzine Wants To Ignore

...by our friends at inthelobby.net

Have you ever wondered, just how did New Jersey get here?

How could a state as prosperous as ours get to the point of financial crisis that it is today?

Here are a few reasons:

10,000: The number of state employees who were hired by the state's governors, both Republican and Democrat, between 2000 and 2006, a 17 percent gain even though the state’s population grew by only 4 percent, according to City Journal..

(Corzine brags that he's cutting roughly 3,000 jobs wants to skip the fact that there's still a net of +7,000 jobs over the past 6 years)

13,000: The number of full-time (or full-time equivalents) hired by agencies and authorities subsidized by state government but not directly controlled by the governor, in that same time frame.

Nearly 6 percent: The amount state spending increased a year from 2000 through 2008, nearly double the inflation rate.

33: The number of times ex-Gov. McGreevey raised taxes and fees in his short time in office.

$1.2 billion: The amount Gov. Corzine raised the sales tax in 2006.

Second-worst: New Jersey's ranking for business-tax environment in the country, according to the Tax Foundation.

Third-worst: Managed state in the nation, according to Governing magazine.

9 percent: The amount then-Gov. DiFrancesco and the Legislature raised pensions for public employees, teachers and state lawmakers in 2001, according to the Asbury Park Press.

$5.2 billion: The amount the pension boost cost taxpayers.

Almost $8 billion: The expected cost of active and retired employee benefits, including pension and health care, in 2013, up from $2 billion this year.

Now how does Gov. Corzine's budget and fiscal plan address these facts?

We've said it before, we'll say it again. New Jersey doesn't have a revenue problem; it has a spending problem.

Jacking the tolls up by 800 percent, or raising the gas tax, will do nothing to change that.

NJ: HIGH PRICE FOR ROTTEN GOV'T

From the NYPOST

WHEN New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine announced his slim med- down budget recently, he said that the state could no longer afford the government that it now has. What he didn't say is that this government isn't just expensive, it's also mismanaged and ineffective.

That is, New Jerseyans pay some of the country's highest taxes to get one of the country's worst governments.

In a new study, Governing magazine ranks Jersey the nation's third-worst-managed state. The problem isn't just the shambles that its finances are in, but also its lack of investment in infrastructure, its poor employee training and development, and a failure to apply technology and data to manage public services well.

Talk about a quadruple whammy for the state's residents, who ought to be asking exactly what the heck the state has been doing with all their money.

One thing that Jersey's patronage-ridden government has been doing is hiring workers at a rapid rate, far faster than most other states. Corzine's recent pledge to trim the state's workforce by 3,000 employees (as part of $500 million in spending cuts) drew a howl from public-sector unions, as well as warnings from some editorialists that the cuts might hurt services.

Corzine might have noted that from 2000 to 2006 - after the Wall Street tech-stock meltdown and the economic fallout from 9/11 - a succession of NJ governors added 10,000 workers to the state's executive workforce, a 17 percent rise, even as the state's population grew by only 4 percent.

The hiring spree didn't stop there. State agencies and authorities not directly controlled by the governor were rapidly boosting their own payrolls, adding about 13,000 more full-time (or full-time-equivalent) workers to the state's payrolls, reports the Census Bureau. Only a few other states increased their public payrolls as quickly; all were far larger than Jersey and had more rapidly growing populations. By contrast, even New York was a model of efficiency, growing its workforce by less than 1 percent during the same period.

READ THE REST HERE

...and therein lies Jon Corzines problem...

Two months after we the people rejected Corzine's little $450 million in new borrowing for his stem-cell initiative, he stood before the state legislature and informed that the state was in a deep financial crisis - that NJ borrowed much more than it can pay back and something must be done...

SO: if in January, he "fesses up to the obvious", why two months earlier is he pushing to borrow another $450 million???

Very interesting read from our friends at inthelobby.net

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After his successsful sneak attack on Pearl Habor, Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto is said to have lamented, "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."

Fast-forward 66 years, and you have to wonder: Does Jon Corzine suspect that he may have done the same thing?

Call it what you will, but something is happening in the New Jersey electorate. It started in November, when voters who were smarter than their government rejected $450 million in new borrowing to pay for the operating costs of stem cell research centers that the state had already agreed to borrow $270 million to build.

Corzine, who sunk at least $100,000 of his own money into a pro-stem cell advertising campaign, was stunned when it didn’t pass, after pollsters and pundits and his own sensibilities had assured him it would.

Two months after that defeat, he stood before the state Legislature and solemnly exclaimed that New Jersey was in a deep financial crisis. The state had borrowed to the point of excess; debt service was eating up the budget, and something must be done.

His plan, as we all now know, was to turn control of the toll roads to a Public Benefit Corporation, which could sell bonds off the toll roads and raise tolls by 800 percent.

So here’s a question Corzine’s never answered: If he knew that the borrowing was eating the New Jersey budget alive in 2007 – as he surely did – why in the world was he out there promoting the sale of another $450 million in bonds?

And therein lies Jon Corzine’s problem.

He may not have connected the dots, but the public does. Corzine is no different than other politicians when it comes to spending our money on programs he thinks we should have -- even if we can't afford it.

That point became even clearer after his administration admitted that they also plan to go out and bond for another $2.5 billion in school construction – even though the state had already wasted more than $6 billion with very few schools to show for it the first time around.

For all his talk about putting the borrowing to the public, he doesn't mean it. How can he? Corzine has given every Trenton politician a “Get Out of Jail” card when it comes to borrowing. As long as they declare that the bond issue would be paid for by an existing tax stream, it doesn’t have to go before the voters.

And that will stop borrowing how?For all his talk, Corzine’s vaulted promise that all future borrowing would go before the voters isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.

Trenton politicians – heck, all politicians – want what they want when they want it. Corzine wanted to be a player in stem cell research. He wants to build new schools. The state doesn’t have any money, but why let that stand in the way of his legacy?

Only one problem. The voters said no to stem cell research.

He won’t make that mistake again. That’s why he says the school construction doesn’t need to go to the voters. And why he won’t put his massive $38 billion toll hike scheme before the voters.

Technically, he says it’s because they’ll both have dedicated funding (taxes on school construction, toll hikes on the toll roads.) The reality, however, is much simpler.

He can’t trust us not to say no.

When he went into the belly of the beast this week – Monmouth and Ocean counties, two areas that will be hurt the most by the toll hike plan – Corzine was likely not expecting the level of anger he heard from the residents.

And he was probably stunned that they knew all about his inconsistencies: agreeing to raises for judges, despite the state being broke; shouting down his attempts to say that any cuts in the budget would result in hospitals closing; and generally demanding that the government cut itself, before he asks them for any more money.

We love how whenever the governor is questioned on why he is forcing the state’s burden on such a small segment of the population, he pipes up with how frequent commuters could get a discount of 20 to 25 percent.

As if turning an 800 percent toll hike into a 600 or 660 percent toll hike somehow makes it fair or acceptable.

The real reason that Corzine wants commuters and those who drive the toll roads to pay an 800 percent increase is purely political: it affects fewer people than an overall hike in the gas tax, combined with significant spending cuts, would.

Want proof? Check out this map developed for the Asbury Park Press by City University finance professor Jonathan Peters. It shows where the highest concentration of E-ZPass users live in New Jersey.

Three guesses what counties appear hardest hit – Monmouth, Ocean, and Middlesex. The bulk of the counties don’t have significant numbers of E-ZPass drivers, according to this map.

It's the same reason he’s putting off the toll hikes until the year after he and the state Legislature stand for re-election.

But Corzine couldn’t be that cynical, could he?

What the governor underestimated – as he underestimated in the stem cell research vote – is that New Jerseyans aren’t stupid. Their rising property tax bills have ended whatever complacency they once had.

They love their state, but they either can’t afford to live here, or are afraid they won’t be able to in a few years.

There’s a reason why more people are leaving New Jersey than coming in.

The people of New Jersey recognize that the politicians who are running their state government don’t understand that the status quo no longer works. That government spending is not the answer to their problem; it is the source of their problem. That government’s efforts to protect the bureaucracy are harming their families.

They understand that an 800 percent toll hike will mean all New Jerseyans will pay more for food, clothing and goods. That businesses like shipping and warehouses and distribution may move to other states, and take their jobs with them.

They know that families in New Jersey are forced to make hard choices every day in order to make ends meet, and government should have to make those same hard choices – before they go to the people and ask them for more.

A larger government will not make the lives of New Jersey families any better. A larger paycheck, and fewer taxes – and tolls – will. New Jerseyans are willing to make some sacrifices in order to fix the fiscal mess, but they’re not willing to be the only ones –and they want the government to be cut down to size first. Otherwise, the people know that despite what Corzine says, the government will go on, spending money it just doesn’t have.

Corzine’s already doing it – his new school funding formula expands government by mandating preschool education for low-income students, without identifying how he’s going to pay for it.

Whatever hopes the governor had that he could rush this plan of his through the Legislature has fallen wayside to the anger of the public. Tomorrow, there will be a rally at noon at the Statehouse, sponsored by NJ101.5 radio, to show voter discontent. The only way Trenton will listen is if they fear the wrath of the voters. A large crowd will make them notice.

In 1941, it was bombs over Pearl Harbor that awakened the anger of America. In 2008 New Jersey, it may well be pigs flying over the Statehouse.

Either way, New Jersey is awake. Let’s see how many politicians in Trenton start paying attention.

Corzine (Cosa Nostra) Toll Panel Is Rich with Special Interests

The Record - By Elisa Young

A 54-member panel chosen to “educate the public” about Governor Corzine’s financial restructuring plan contains a mix of administration loyalists and veteran Trenton insiders positioned for a piece of multibillion-dollar highway spending. (Here’s a link to the “Who’s Who” on the panel)

Three of the members — including the chairman — are principals or affiliates of New Jersey’s top three lobbying firms. They represent engineers, raw-material industries, financial companies, resorts and utilities — all with potentially something to gain from a proposed $11 billion in road projects.

Ten of the appointees have some connection to Alliance for Action, a construction advocacy group that promises its 600 members “excellent opportunities to network with New Jersey’s public and private leaders.” Three other appointees — top executives with Verizon, Trump Entertainment and Public Service Electric and Gas Co. — have seen their businesses benefit from legislation Corzine has signed or initiatives he has endorsed.

READ THE REST HERE

CLICK HERE to our friends at Liberty and Prosperity to see what the gang of 54 look like

Lawmakers contemple Moving School Elections From April to November

TRENTON — In an effort to reduce costs and increase voter participation, state lawmakers Thursday discussed moving school board elections from April to the general election in November.

The Senate Education Committee held discussions Thursday with education groups about consolidating election days, as well as eliminate the requirement that voters decide school tax levies, except for separate questions if the growth cap is exceeded.

Extra elections cost citizens money that could be saved to reduce property taxes or better spent on education, said Sen. Shirley Turner, D-Mercer, the committee chairwoman and sponsor of a bill that would enact such changes.

"Every time we turn around, we're having another election that is costing people money," said Turner.

Turner also said moving the elections to November would allow more voters to have a say in school board elections, since participation is significantly higher.

CONTINUE HERE

Measure limiting 2-job Gov. Workers To 1 Health Plan Unanimously Approved

TRENTON — An Assembly panel unanimously approved a measure Thursday that would limit elected and appointed public office holders to one public health plan, while a pair of lawmakers hopes to take this a step further by eliminating all publicly paid health plans for elected officials who earn less than $50,000.

The measure advanced Monday, with bipartisan support, would end dual health coverage for public office holders with second public positions. One sponsor, Assemblyman Declan O'Scanlon, R-Monmouth, said it's a step he hopes to expand to any family that has access to more than one health plan.

O'Scanlon told the Assembly State Government Committee there is no way to quantify how much would be saved, though it would probably not be much.

"One of the reasons we need this bill is because we can't answer that," O'Scanlon said. "There is no list."

Meanwhile, Assemblymen Vince Polistina and John Amodeo, both R-Atlantic, have introduced a measure barring coverage for elected officials who serve part-time — defined as earning less than $50,000. That would remove most mayors, all legislators except Senate president and Assembly speaker and scads of local and county officials.

"All legislators and part-time elected officials should stand forward and support this," said Amodeo, citing the state's budget crisis. "I think it's good for the citizens of the state of New Jersey."

Assemblywoman Joan Quigley, D-Hudson, chairwoman of the Assembly State Government Committee, said she hadn't heard of the proposal but had a mixed reaction. CONTINUE HERE

Five judges retiring after pay hike boosts pensions

Why not? If I had Corzine as a friend (Corzine Cosa Nostra), I can retire too…

Because of the pay raise approved this month, retiring Superior Court judges can see their pensions boosted by $6,000 a year if they work one day this year.

Under pension rules, judges of the supreme, superior or tax courts who are fully vested in the system can collect 75 percent of their final salary. So when Gov. Jon S. Corzine and the Legislature increased their pay 5 percent from $149,000 to $157,000 this month, they also hiked veteran judges’ pensions from about $112,000 to $118,000.

At least five Superior Court judges have indicated they plan to retire by April 1 during the two weeks since the pay raise was approved by the Legislature. In recent years, about 22 judges have retired annually in New Jersey.

“I wasn’t hanging fire because I needed a certain number, it’s just that I knew it would go up,” retiring Superior Court Judge Paul T. Koenig Jr. said. “And why would I retire the first of October when I knew there was say a 50-50 chance that we might get another pay raise either January or July? That was the rumor. And I figured in my situation it was worth waiting to see what was going to happen.”

According to pension estimates, Koenig who is slated to retire Friday from his Mercer County post, will collect a pension of $112,569 — reduced from the maximum of $118,000 because of various benefit options he selected.

In addition to Koenig, whose decision has postponed the trial date of a whistle-blower suit against the Board of Public Utilities, four other judges have signaled they will retire by April 1: Joseph C. Visalli in Cape May County, Maryann Bielamowicz and Neil Shuster in Mercer County and John J. Harper in Morris County.

“It was a consideration, that didn’t put me over the top,” Visalli said of how the pay raise factored into his plan to retire April 1. “I like what I’m doing. I always liked it. I enjoyed doing it and it’s very hard to separate.”

The multiplying effect of pay raises on pensions is one of the reasons some Republicans protested the measure when it was approved last session.

“The way the law is written judges only have to stay for one day at the higher salary and their pension is based on the higher salary,” said Assemblywoman Marcia Karrow, R-Hunterdon, adding this remains “pretty much for the rest of their life.”

Koenig plans to spend the next phase of his life in Florida, where he owns a home and his wife has wintered for the past few years.

“My wife is retired and lives in Florida, and I figured it was time for me to spend more time there,” Koenig said.

Judges, county prosecutors, and county constitutional officers such as clerks and sheriffs were granted raises under a law signed by Gov. Jon S. Corzine Jan. 14, a week after both houses of the Legislature approved the bill.

This followed a separate raise granted judges last summer in the annual budget that raised pay for Superior Court judges from $141,000 to $149,000. That number increased under the new law to $157,000 and will rise to $165,000 next January.

The net effect is that top pensions for Superior Court judges will rise from $105,750 in 2007 to $123,750 next year — a 17 percent increase.

The pay raises were pushed by Chief Justice Stuart Rabner, who argued the raises were needed to keep quality judges and give them pay in line with federal judges. The Senate voted 25-13 and the Assembly 51-26 for the raises.

“This increase is vital to ensuring the continued exceptional quality of our Judiciary and the retention of our experienced judges,” Corzine wrote in a statement when signing the law.

Gregory J. Volpe: gvolpe@gannett.com

New Jersey’s Credit card bill - just unbelievable…

Amazing numbers here - the preplexing question (other than where the heck all these spending numbers come from) however is Why is Gov. Corzine is in such a panic to pay our bills?

Hmmm…. Terrific read by our friends at Enlighten NJ

Thanks guys - keep doing what you’re doing!

Another slick move by our beloved Gov.: Advocacy group “Save our State NJ” pops up to support the Toll Hike fiasco… Guess who funded it??

The Courier Post online had an article about a New Advocacy Group called “Save our State NJ (coincidence - it’s in opposition to save our assets nj?). It’s registered as a 501(c)(4) organization.

In the article, spokesman Jennifer Godoski states “We are going to raise whatever it takes to get the message out to New Jerseyans about the crisis we are in and about the plan that is on the table”.

Wow - seems like a well informed convicted backer of the Corzine fiasco - oops - I mean Toll Hike plan.

So who is this Jennifer Godoski? THAT is a great question!

She’s listed as chief of staff to Kris Kolluri, Corzine’s commissioner of transportation and one of the chief proponents of the 800 percent toll tax. Before that, she was a spokeswoman for Assemblywoman Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-Mercer.

So our slick Governor funds a 501(c) organization to push his agenda and have the spokeswoman plucked from one of his main backers.

Hey Govna’ - if this is a wise, honest, and convicting plan, what’s with all the slick maneuvers?

Any wonder why we believe you’re totally dishonest and not credible?

Good source of information found at our friends at inthelobby.net

Funny; I don’t recall reading about these local elections…

Which is precisely why this opinion in the Courier Post online is worth sharing.

And it just goes to show - we, New Jerseyans, are just plainly being taken advantage of, and will continue repeat the NJCommunity Motto.

Your voice matters!

LET OUR VOICES (and our voting privileges) RISE TOGETHER AND MAKE TRENTON HEAR US. IT’S TIME FOR CHANGE!

Trenton must merge various election days

Elections that happen from February through June should be consolidated on one day so more people go to the polls.

Saturday was Election Day, although you probably missed it.

Across South Jersey, in Voorhees, Mount Laurel, Haddon Township, Deptford, Winslow and elsewhere, the polls were open for voters to decide on multimillion-dollar budgets for local fire districts. As usual, however, hardly anyone voted because hardly anyone remembered the races were going on. This is the continual problem of having local fire districts put their operating budgets and commissioner candidates up for election every year on a Saturday in mid-February, when no one is thinking about going to the polls.

This is why the collection of various elections staggered throughout the winter and spring each year in New Jersey — fire district races in February, school board and budgets in April, nonpartisan municipal races in May and partisan primaries in June — need to be combined on one election day. Factoring in the assigned dates when school districts can hold bond referendum votes, there are often nine or 10 election days in New Jersey each year. That’s too many for voters to keep track of.

In Winslow, population 38,600, just 621 people voted on the $2.9 million fire district budget Saturday. In Deptford, population 30,200, just 193 people voted on the fire district’s $3.9 million budget. Turnouts were similarly dismal across the region.

All homeowners pay property taxes that go to fund these budgets. Yet most don’t know when or where these elections happen because there’s little attention given to them. The other spring elections also regularly have low turnouts.

In 2005, the state Legislature adopted an elections reform package that, among other things, made New Jersey’s presidential primary relevant by moving it from June to early February. However, like most reform to come out of Trenton, the package had a major void — it left out election consolidation, even after some of the package’s champions in the Legislature acknowledged how important it was to reduce the number of election days.

Combining all these spring elections on one day will save money by lessening the number of days poll workers must be paid and voting machines must be wheeled out. It will also work to drive up turnout. Over time, people will get used to going to the polls in the spring to vote on a number of things.

Sadly, there are those who probably want to keep turnouts low and keep the elections spread out. Low turnouts mean a few insiders can more easily control an election’s result.

It’s time to change that. It’s undemocratic and foolish to hold elections in a way that drives down turnout.

The Corzine Cosa Nostra hard at work: Governor enlists wealth of lobbyists who could gain from toll-hike plans

The 54 people hand-picked by Gov. Corzine to promote his toll-hike plan include lobbyists whose clients could gain from the project and 10 people linked to a construction advocacy group promoting opportunities to network with state leaders.The panel’s chairman and two other members work for the state’s three top lobbying firms, The Record of Bergen County reported for Sunday. They represent engineers, financial companies, resorts, and utilities, all industries with the potential to benefit if the governor’s multi-billion-dollar financial restructuring plan is approved.

Ten of the appointees are connected to the construction advocacy group Alliance for Action. Three others are top executives with Verizon, Trump Entertainment and Public Service Electric and Gas Co., businesses that have benefited from prior laws.

“There’s not a common denominator beyond wanting New Jersey to be a better place,” said Corzine spokeswoman Lilo Stainton.

Corzine’s financial restructuring plan includes sharply higher tolls, the revenues from which will be used to pay down state debt and fund transportation projects. Tolls on the Turnpike, Parkway and Atlantic City Expressway would be affected.

Critics complain that Corzine’s panel lacks regular highway commuters.

Michael Riccards, executive director of the Hall Institute, a public policy group, suspects varying motives among committee members.

“There are people who are genuinely concerned and believe the governor has given them a plan to get out of the wilderness,” said Riccards. “There (also) are people who are looking to make a buck off this.”

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