New Jersey State Senator Joe Kyrillos, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, issued the following statement regarding the decision by the Superior Court which states judges are exempt from the recently enacted pension and health benefits reforms, echoing the Governor's call for a Constitutional Amendment:
“It is preposterous that the Judiciary would be exempt from higher contribution requirements set in the recently passed pension and health benefits reforms. An amendment to the New Jersey Constitution which currently prevents judges from paying higher contribution rates for their pension and health benefits is obviously necessary given Judge Feinberg’s decision. This issue is fundamentally about fairness; all public employees are making sacrifices and judges should not be set apart as a privileged class of employees.
“The Judiciary collects more generous, tax-payer funded benefits than any other group of state employees. Judges now pay only a maximum of 3 % of their salary into the pension system, the lowest contribution rate of all the pension systems. In fact, the average judge makes back their contributions in just seven months of retirement. This is why the Judicial Retirement System is more at risk than any other pension system and why it is appropriate to ask the judges to contribute more for their own benefits.”
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