nothing is thought out beause they are spending other peoples momey. if it were their money, you would see how tight the budhet would be.. i never see anyone talk about the unions paying for the benefits. God knows they have a lot of money. they acn afford it. with all the dues they get. why, why does it always have to be the home owners. .make the unions be responsible for ALL benefits. or the other alternative is loss of job. if the union gave a sh** they would . we all know they are just out for their pockets.

As of the passing of bill A-4133 the Public employees currently paying 1.5 percent of their healthcare premium cost at the signing of the bill, will pay 3 percent for those earning under $25,000, and up to 35 percent of their healthcare premiums for those making up to $100,000, on a sliding scale that is based on employee compensation. The rates will gradually increase based on an employee’s compensation, at intervals of $5,000.

in addition to increases in pension payments and cancellation of COLA payments for likely 30 some odd years.

thats right reality. make the unions pay all benefits. then you'll all the caddilac health care plans go south.

While you are at it, How many retired employees receive benefits?????

Don, its likely somewhere in the area of 600-800 retired employees. Keep in mind that these retired employees still need to pay for their benefits after retirement and they are not "free benefits for life" as most people have inferred.

The Mayor did not cause this problem. like him or not. this all had to come to this. when its all on the backs of one portion of the poulation. eventually it emplods.

Because of all of Acropolis close family and club freinds where transfered from Public Works and the Parks Department was created and saved from the last layoff

I've watched my contribution to my health insurance go from 5% to now 70% in 4 years at my private sector job. Plus, get my hours reduced and forgo a well deserved raise (as did a few others) so a couple of people wouldn't get laid off at my job. We figured we would all sacrifice together. I don't agree with laying off the 77, (especially since one couple is my neighbor-great people!) and I voted to pay higher taxes to keep the public works department. Now, I'm unemployed, can't afford the cobra benefits and my daughter needs braces, lol. I don't mind contribuiting my fair share, but these cadillac benefits have to stop. We as the people can't afford them. My neighbor told me they were warned of layoffs before this idiot ordered the new garbage trucks. They never got offered a cut in hours or a chance to contribute more for health insurance. Just a pink slip. Not all the union members agree with union managment. They want to keep their jobs and help out.

there is everything wrong with public workers belonging to unions. the writer that said there isn't is a fool. it brought us all to this point. loose your home or keep giving out the goodies. don't tell me confused, you work for local government your rights are protected . and as a result we have all this now. there is no more money get that straight . the state is broke.

Sorry, Ken, but you are living in the "real" world. In the public sector, they think it's a big deal to have to pay only 1.5%+ of their salary towards their premiums. Do you think Brick Township employees have large copays or large out-of-pocket expenses?
I'll ask again - How much do Brick Township employees pay when they visit the doctor? How much for the ER? How much to have a prescription filled?
Most public employees despise Govenor Christie because he has required that they begin paying a miniscule 1.5%+ of their salary towards their premiums.

Reality, as in my last post most public employees pay far more than 1.5% of the premium. Upwards of 35% in *reality* if you bother to read the bill that covers the increase in contributions.

by comparison, as I stated in another post, In the private sector the average percentage of premium paid by covered workers is 16% for single coverage and 28% for family coverage. Only 9% of the US has individual healthcare so the bill passed by Christie increasing HC contributions is more in line with the private sector, if not above.

Mr. Pezarras - Please share with us the number of Brick Township employees who are currently paying 35% of the actual cost of their health care premium? We would all like to know how much our employees pay when they visit the doctor, the er, the cost to fill prescriptions, etc.
The REALITY is the Township of Brick is paying $11.3 million for health care!! We want to know the details of why this number keeps rising year after year.

Reality, 11M, while a large number as far as dollars go, is really not that extravagant in terms of employee healthcare costs. Im finding it difficult to compare what private companies contribute to their budget but I was able to find a study comparing public sector employees benifits, including healthcare, to private sector employees. This is a few years ago however, and with NJ's new benifits reforms it could be assumed public sector benifits make up more of the percentage of ones salary.

according to this study done by the congressional budget office, private sector employees pay approximately 26% of their salary towards benifits, and public employees pay about 24% The title of the study from the CBO is "Comparing Federal Employee Benifits with those in the Private Sector."

My insurance premiums went up 65% in 2011 so i can relate. I'm sick and tired of listening to public employees whine over petty little increase proposals they all need to get a clue. Apparently though the idiots in this town dont get it, i still cant believe the tax increase passed last year. I am beginning to think that we deserve this.

Spartacus

Hourly rates remain the same as last year for professional services.

the founders of the labor movement viewed unions as a vehicle to get workers more of the profits they help create. Government workers , however, don't generate profits. They merely negotiate for more tax money.When government unions strike , they strike against taxpayers. F D R " considered this unthinkable and Intolerable" .
Government collective bargaining means voters do not have the final say on public policy. its not democratic - a fact that unions once recognized.
Union contracts make it impossible to reward excellent teachers or fire failing ones.
Union contracts give government employees gold-plated benefits. at the cost of higher taxes and less spending on other priorities.

In the private sector, the average percentage of premium paid by covered workers is 16% for single coverage and 28% for family coverage. Only 9% of the US has individual healthcare.

So, it would be helpful to tell us how many public employees in Brick are taking single coverage and how many are taking family coverage. It would also help the taxpayer to stop paying stipends for not taking the benefits offered. Another simple concept. You want them, sign here and the national average will be deducted from your pay. You don't want them? No deduction, no stipend.

However in the private sector or as we call it THE REAL WORLD, companies do not have cadilac benefits packages. They have packages like:

Example is 20/50 dr co pays 10/25/50% perscription, 5000 inpatient hospital co pay, weekly premium paid by employee for family coverage, 302 PER WEEK. That is a company that employees 10 people.

Sorry but who does the negociating for the town sucks at it.

Time, those percentages I gave of 16% and 28% are for private sector average contributions. I dont know the percentage or the differences for township employees. Just in case there was any confusion.

Me, you cant realistically compare the healthcare costs for a company of 10 people to a govt entity like Brick or the State. Its more realistic to compare healthcare costs of a large private company. The smaller companies, unfortunately, are always going to pay more and thats because of the climate of healthcare in the state for private sector employees. instead of complaining that public sector employees dont pay enough, why not really fight for reform to make private healthcare more affordable using public healthcare as a model for private employers?

Hey KC you think I protest to much. IS THAT THE BEST YOU GOT????/ WELL YOUR RIGHT ,I WILL CONTINUE TO PROTEST WHEN MY PROPERTY TAXES KEEP GOING UP AND UP AND UP, WITH NO END . BECAUSE SOME THINK THEY ARE ENTITLED TO WHAT MINE. YOU ARE NOT , i WILL NOT HAND OVER MY HOUSE . i WILL FIGHT AND VOTE THE PEOPLE OUT THAT WILL GOVERN THAT WAY. THE PEOPLE ARE TRYING TO HOLD ON TO THEIR HOMES INA ECONOMY THAT'S SICK. WHAT PART OF... THERE IS NO MORE MONEY , DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND KC . GET THE COBWEBS OUT OF YOUR HEAD. YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND A DAM!!!!! THING. GOT IT. B T W. YOU WONT SHUT ME UP. I WILL BE ON HERE PROTESTING AND PROTESTING, AND PROTESTING. BYE...

Thats right these unions want to dig in and not work with the privet sector , then outsource. the party's over. we are trying to hold on to our homes.

I'm just putting the information out there, Scott. If people choose to read it, or *gasp* research it on their own, that's up to them.

Though, baseless opinionated one-sided rants filled with ulterior motives ARE pretty entertaining.

Scott, where can we find the details of the plan, or plans, that are offered to our public employees? Co-pays, prescription cost, in-network, out-of-network (assuming this is an HMO, PPO, etc..). Based on some posts that I have seen, we are left to believe that the public employees are getting a package that few in the real world could afford. I personally have paid for a family policy and have received benefits from my employer. My personal plan was an HMO in which prescription costs were only covered 50%, co-pays were $30-40, etc... and this costed me $1250 per month. I just want to throw that out there as an example.

Wise words from part of the problem

Time

These things are all outlined in the collective bargaining agreemtns and must be negotiated in order to change them. We have 4 collective bargaining agreements in the Twp.

TimeForChange, public employees do pay more towards their premiums based upon their salary, please refer to the recent bill passed by christie, which I referred to in prior posts. Employees under 25k pay 3% while employees making 100% pay upwards of 35%, the contributions increase by increments of 5k along a sliding scale based on the employees salary.

Thanks Hollowman. What is 100% pay, or did you mean 100k?

im sorry i did mean 100K

I agree, my contribution went up, my co pays went up and my benefits went down. They got rid of dental and vision, but my contribution went from 20% to 45% in a year. PS- I love the new term, Rolls Royce benefits!

time for change.... your 100% right. heres an example of what we pay.....120.00 a week. 1,000 deductable for each person. meds co pay. 20.00 and 50.00.

Me

These things are discussed at the bargaining table, but they can not be unilaterally imposed, or we open ourselves up to lawsuits.

Oscar, i am simply providing SOMETHING of a basis on which to compare, instead of name calling and prejudicial bashing between groups.

how come nobody talks about the N J E A, and all the supperententents ???? they are the bigest blood suckers. the kids test scores are worst then ever. Why?? because when you cant be fired for doing a poor job. you dont give a SH**. abolish the N J E A

Anna, according to the Nations Report Card testing, http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/studies/statemapping/2005_naep_state_table.asp, NJ places pretty high in 4th, 8th, and 12th grade testing levels for science math and reading....

Anna, disregard that, its from 2005 and i didnt realize it, Ill try to find something more recent.

Anna here is the mathematics report for 2011. NJ has either not drastically changed in scoring since 2009 or has improved minimally, but has not lowered. only one state has actually worsened, that being NY.

http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pubs/main2011/2012458.asp

Anna maria,
You are correct, it is the school portion of our property tax bills that affect us the most. Until the state finds a way to fund a larger portion of our school taxes we will not see real property tax relief.

I would agree with that. I also don't think a politician elected for 4 years should receive benefits and pension for life when any other public employee is mandated for 20-25 years of service.

Hollowman,
those statistics are from the dept of education government numbers. im not about to believe them. the federal government has no business in Education. when they do. everything gets bloated , expensive. and fails. Government needs to get out of our lives .

*"also increased for the public sector."

stop wasting everyones time with BS studies from 2007......the economy got blown up in 2008 and the private sector got shredded and yet the public pigs have barely been touched.....the gap has widen so much , why do you think people are pissed

i guess you entitled mentality fools will never understand until it all finally collapses....

kff.org seems to be a good place to get information on national healthcare trends. I'd suggest spending some free time on that site to gather statistics. Also, I really would suggest people rally together for healthcare reform making it easier and more affordable for private employees to get healthcare, especially for small business owners, instead of demanding public employees also get lower (and worse) healthcare. Why wouldnt people fight to have the SAME healthcare, instead of fighting to have that healthcare lowered?

Oscar, I dont see you coming up with any factual basis for your anger or slander, other than rhetoric im sure you are emulating from your favorite news blog or mass media news filter.

because those people are PAYING for it.......and in danger of losing their houses because of it.......THATS WHY THEY ARE DEMANDING IT !!!!!!!

Hollowman
I think you are incorrect. Retirees of Brick of Brick Township with 25 years or more of service pay NOTHING towards their health care. I would like Scott to confirm or repute this. If am correct, this is a travesty to the taxpayers of Brick, and it goes on forever.

Private industry realized they can't afford to do this. Let's get real.

Oscar, who are the overpaid babysitters?

Oscar, you have absolutely no positive suggestions or real basis for your remarks. I agree that people in the private sector pay too much for healthcare. That is what people should be mad at, and with the passing of Christie's benefits reform bill, public employee's now pay a LOT more towards healtchare, MUCH closer in line to what the public pays. However, making public employees pay MORE for healthcare will not decrease what the private employees pay, and will still be largely unaffordable by private employees and small business owners. Use all your "anger" and name calling to reforming PRIVATE healthcare as Christie has reformed public healthcare. Clearly if public sector healthcare can be reformed to increase payments by nearly 34%, private sector healthcare can be reformed to be more affordable to. THAT is what people should be fighting for.

all i care about is property taxes are too high and the most regressive tax in the world and yet no one in either gang of thieves can ever make them go down.....someone else can go fight the insurance companies, my fight is property taxes and those who cause them to be unbearable and those who do nothing about them going up every year , especially fat liars and their 2% BULLCAP

the homeowners better WAKE UP and get more angry than me or they will become homeless......becuase the death spiral will spare no one

Oscar, you (and others) are acting as tho public employees have never given anything back, up, or increased payments to anything when that quite simply is not true. Police now pay 10% of their salary to their pension, teachers pension i believed increased by 7.5% (phased in). Healthcare has all gone up for public employees, COLA is cancelled, retirement ages are extended, and retirement benefits have been cut back. I think that's a lot to help with the tax problem, but if its still not at the level you are hoping for, perhaps there is another "front" you can battle in your apparent war on government spending other than on public employees.

Oscar, I find your lack of basis in reality disturbing...

Teachers increased pension TO 7.5% not BY 7.5%

I pay 100% of my "pension."

JHill, What you actually pay into, im assuming is a sort of savings account or account with interest. To accurately compare, a police officer puts in 10% of his salary a year into a mandatory savings account which accrues interest over time. The Govt contributes to this fund as well, just like private companies in most 401k programs. The correct number you should post on here is how much of your salary you contribute to your "savings" which im sure is not 100%, and is most likely much less than 10% as well. Also it is your choice to contribute, as well as to decide how much it is you contribute to your savings account. Public workers do not have a choice on what to contribute, based upon what they can afford. They put in what the law decides they must. You also contribute to social security, which is a government funded type of pension system in which you eventually see returns after the govt has also contributed their fair share.

Its usually suggested a person "saves" 10% of their salary towards some sort of retirement fund, tho most americans are no where near this. the actual savings rate in the country is -1 but this doesnt account for pensions, 401ks and IRA's.

If you are one of the americans that saves 10% of your salary into a retirement account that accrues interest, then there is really very little difference from how you "save" and how public employees "save"

It is a 401k and I contribute 17% of my salary.

Plus, I only get out what I put in plus interest. I don't get to put in $175,000 and take out $2,000,000 dollars.

Me

We have to pay unemployment for the laid off employees the Twp has appropriated $2,080,000 for that benefit. The workers comp premium is calculated based on historical data from previous years and is a bill presented from the joint insurance fund. If the joint fund does well as far as claims go, the twp will participate in "dividend". It acts similarly to NJ Manufacturers Insurance.

Oscar, Me is correct and this is what I'm also trying to tell you. Public Employees HAVE been giving things up for the last few years little by little, MORE so this last year or so. Your taxes will never go down no matter what they give back or who they lay off. SPENDING on projects like the ones ME listed are the real cause and maybe you can focus your "pig" bashing on the people in charge of those projects (even tho, in essence they are good ideas, just not currently affordable).

and thats why i call it the 2% BULLCAP.......homeowners (especially suburban) better stop drinking the christie kool aid .....he is killing them and they love him for it

Where is the Foodtown money ? This could become Steve's Truck and Surplus Goods Yard if the Mayor gets his way. Come on City Council make the Township collect what is ours and make the right choices when you submit "Your Budget" for 2012. Do what is right - Stop the Mayor's agenda once and for all.

Me

That is not true check the budget and you will find the biggest cost is a salary and wage account for public safety

Me, I speak from experience when I say that, having family as police in NC and SC, they are most DEF not treated fairly as police officers in states with unions are. I dont want to air their dirty laundry here but trust me when I say they are MUCH worse on the treatment of their employees and while the IDEA of promotion and raises on merit is a great idea, the reality of it is that promotions and raises become given out to favorites, are more likely to create corruption in the form of buyouts or favors to supervisors for positive performance reports. Union negotiated raises were created to stop things like cronyism and favoritism and to give employees in those unions fair chance at increased wages. I have heard the argument that committees could be formed to defend against unfair promotional and raise practices, but in essence thats exactly what a union is anyway so what really is the point? The committees would simply create guidelines for raises in order to assure employees that there is some level of fairness to it, and in turn would create a system of established salary increases.

Me

As long as unions are in place an employee covered by the bargaining unit can't opt out, they must at least pay the agency fee which is 85% of the the dues but then they will not have a right to vote. Most people would rather pay the extra 15% and have a say in what happens in the union.

Lazzari

Our broker solicted proposals a from companies, but we have contract language to contend with and many items involving health benefits must be negotiated at the table as I have said many times on this forum.

Most police officers pay more than 24% towards their healthcare.

A) this is from california that has MUCH different govt employee healthcare costs than NJ, NJ public employees pay WAY more than CA public employees, B) this is from an anti-union website whos motives i would find suspect to begin with. Find a non-partisan study and id be more willing to agree how accurate it is, regardless of its time frame or the state it is from.

also, the statistics quoted on the final salaries of govt employees VS private employees are badly skewed to show a severe disadvantage to the private employees. It is factoring the eventual returns on the pensions and any deferred payments, or savings, that the govt employee will get upon retirement. To make that fair, it should assume the private employee is part of a 401k and deferred comp plan that would equal and have similar returns, then adjust the private salary based upon their eventual returns as well after retirement.

Also, in that article, it appears CA Govt employees dont pay for SS, where as in NJ govt employees do, or the author of that article is just not factoring in govt employees paying for SS while they do factor it in for private employees.. wow... that article is severely skewed...

They are offered overtime first as opposed to what? The overtime set up in my union is extremely fair and no one gets more opportunity's for OT than any other employee due to a regulated OT list.

And the taxes in Brick and NJ are not due to the scapegoat of public employees as politicians have lead so many to believe.

Me, I think if we delve deeper into this budget, we will find more and more questionable expenses. Unfortunately, because of the way fund accounting is applied, if a budget account has anything left in the last month or two of the fiscal year it will just get wasted on nonsense just to preserve the level of funding for that account in the subsequent year. Sooner or later those items that are used to "fill" the budget, become line items themselves.

All non esential spending should be stopped NOW - I understand the employee's have to continue getting CEU's but with the hard times this can't be continued payed by the Township espically with the Mayors continued rants and threats. All Departments should start from square one cut all the unneedy waste in their budgets that have been presented to the Administration.

sorry, my error.

How about this. There are always elections coming up for Mayor and Council. Suppose we support the candidate/s who agree to set up a nonpartisan council which will engage insurance experts (retired agents and executives) who can price out what the public workers' health plan would cost in the private sector. No sense debating percentages for coverage for radically different plans. So we wind up with "Here's what the town unions get and here's how much they pay, and here's how much a private sector employee would pay for the same coverage:. Apples to apples. Then we can have the argument about whether town employees pay too little.

Vince, the only pitfall I could see with this is, by placing insurance company executives on the committee, they would most likely come to the conclusion that the township could save money by switching insurance carriers simply to serve their own interests. The committee should probably include union members from all township unions, and even then you would have a portion of the public who will still believe that ANY amount the public servants pay is too little, if its less than what they personally pay. If public and private employees paid about the same it would be less of an issue, and less people would be blaming high taxes on healthcare, seeing the rates as fair across the board. However because private people in this state are screwed over by healthcare providers, they believe everyone should be screwed over by healthcare providers, and therefor find a scapegoat in public funded healthcare causing tax increases when in reality, its a very minor part of your taxes as a citizen. If people really are attacking healthcare because they believe it is killing them in taxes, they have sorely been mislead to avoid the real causes of tax increases in this town.

Oscar, I don't know if you saw any of my other posts about retirement in gov't positions, but that number falls directly in line with 3.5 (2.5 retired and 1 actually working) employees being paid to do one job that I have stated over and over. As the retirement age rises, that number should get smaller and our costs per position should shrink. This is what is crippling countries(Greece), cities and municipalities all over the world. I don't know who started it, but it must end.

Oscar

Actually the article is incorrect it should state that the Twp covers 1250 medical lives. That includes active, retirees, and dependants. This is in accordance with bargaining agreements in place with the Twp and State Law.

http://www.state.nj.us/treasury/pensions/shbp1.shtml#retrates

There is the link. Click on rates for local employees.

correction, first find the link (which is just a jump to lower on the page) for retired group rates, THEN click on the link for local employees (which opens a PDF file)

$2,000 a month; I really doubt that

Uhm, its pretty clearly written out in the link i provided..... I even gave instructions on how to find it... do you doubt what i wrote or doubt what the state claims?? Or did you not even read the link...

in the state plan there are three plans, Aetna, Cigna and NJ Direct all of which are about the same for family coverage w/o medicare, around 2k a month..... again, Brick no longer follows the State plan claiming they would save money by shopping around, but these numbers really havent changed since then.

Interesting how they have 2 different sets of rates for local employees(educational and non-educational). Is that the NJEA's influence at work?

Hollowman,.....The $2,000 you are quoting appears to be for for some select group of retirees, not sure which ones. But if you read the other PDF's you will notice that depending on when a person retired with 25 years, the monthly contribution rates range from $0 to a couple of hundred dollars per month. It's all tiered. Additionally, some groups of retirees get their medicare part B premiums reimbiursed. Bottome line: Until the township lets us in on their benefit plans, we really know next to zero.

i would assume its towards the coverage of the group rates offered by the state, so yes. but im not positive on that. Just a logical assumption.

10%

Not Comp matters they are handled through the joint insurance fund, not health benefits.

you can find the states benifits numbers here http://www.state.nj.us/treasury/pensions/hb-comparison-home.shtml

tho Brick apparently is not in the state plan any more, i would assume it is close.

10%

You are correct.

Sounds about right to me.

Farmer

This can not be done unilaterally

Me,.....unfortunately the unions have everyone's hands tied, and that's why public unions should not have bargaining rights for pay and benefits.

Pretty soon there will be no choice as this model is not sustainable. Unless, of course, the 75,000 people of Brick don't mind 50% of their taxes going to pay the for the livliehood of 500 township employees.

Newark gets $18,111 in aid per pupil, Camden gets $18,394 per pupil, elizabeth gets $16,645 per pupil, we get $3,611 per pupil from the state. Minor difference.

$18k per pupil would lower our taxes by at least 35%. Maybe we should lobby to become an abott??

if you really want to get sick, Asbury gets $26,500 per pupil.

omg! With 26+ per pupil our taxes could go down like 65%!

those who cant, teach......how many cops have college educations........how many Brick public employees have college educations...

College educated here, self employed and would never think of becoming a public employee taker

Me

They are not creating more Abbott Districts . What is surprising is the wealty City of Hoboken was declared an Abbott District and continues to benefit from this designation today.

wouldnt bother the retired public employees sitting on the beach in florida

what are you talking about !..... no jobs and regressive property taxes that continue to rise with not care if homeowners can pay that tax....atleast with an income tax , NO JOB = NO TAX.....the real world thats exactly what i am arguing about !!

Me

I don't have that number off the top of my head.

Me

That is not the case with our unions they must pay the agency fee. Perhaps different laws in SC

Scott, in order for that to happen NJ would have to pass a right to work law. That is what I said ^^^^ there. I know how it is here, I have had jobs that were unionized and it is a big waste of money!

Something needs to be done and soon. What really irritates me is the fact the "priate schools" in lakewood and Deal, get more funding then we do, and we can even send our kids there if we wanted to, like the catholic schools,

With the inner cities it is just good money after bad. Their graduation rates are about the same as todays interest rates. I would MUCH rather see them REWARD the districts who have the high graduation rates, good test scores, you get the idea.

I have sent several requests to Mr. Wolf about the ideas I had for school funding, but unfortunaely he never answered my letters.

And this surprises you? Truth be told, its a grand mix of differing co-pays and employee contributions which had to be negotiated based on the union's ability to buy someone. As you can see, the NJEA has the greatest ability to buy whoever they want and it is reflected in what their members pay both while employes and post employment. Thats the reason why there are multiple tables based on which union you were a member of in http://www.state.nj.us/treasury/pensions/hb-comparison-home.shtml. If you run a business, you buy one health plan that is most cost effective for the entity. When you have your hands out, you begin to be selective about who gets what. This goes to the top of our state government. So to answer your question directly, you will receive no answer since those facts are intentionally hidden, obscure and convoluted to protect those who bleed our state and municipalities. Ask Scott Pezzaras and he will say it was contractual. That's the extent of his involvement, he complies with what is required by CBA or other agreements. Who signed the contract and gave away the store? That is where the guilt lies.

Am I missing something? All those contracts expired years ago? And TWU expired this past dec.

IBT Loc 469 Municipal 01/01/91 - 12/31/92 No
IBT Loc 469 Municipal 01/01/2005 - 12/31/2008 Yes
PBA Loc 230 Municipal 01/01/92 - 12/31/94 No
PBA Loc 230 Municipal 01/01/92 - 12/31/94 No
PBA Loc 230 & PBA SOA Municipal 01/01/2005 - 12/31/2008 No
TWU Loc 225 Br 4 Municipal 01/01/2008 - 12/31/2011 No
TWU Loc 225 Br 4 Municipal 01/01/2008 - 12/31/2010 No
TWU Loc 225 Br 4 Municipal 01/01/2004 - 12/31/2007 Yes

Here is a link to where you can view current labor agreements:

http://www.scribd.com/TownshipofBrickNJ

Again TWU, supervisors and crossing guard contracts expired 12/31/11. As has the PBA. So therefore there are no contracts in place at this time. If there are, where are the NEW ONES?

If there are no new ones, this would be the perfect time to get someone who knows how to bargin, get the healthcare costs reduced, along with concessions from the supervisors and PBA, just like the TWU gave.

This is all well and good and it sounds like there some spaining to do but it still doesn't take away from the fact that our township employees (all of them) should be PAYING for a reasonable percentage of there health care and retirement.

Stinger I totally agree, but for that to happen 2 other things need to happen first. 1) ALL the unions must agree 2) we need someone who knows HOW to bargin with the unions so they all agree.

Stinger,

You are correct, but unfortunately it looks like the TWP government let the unions call the shots. I don't know why thay can't go back to the bargaining table to do what's right for "ALL".

This is why I have always said that public employees should not be allowed to bargain for pay and benefits. The federal government sets pay and benefits, and so should local governments.

Yes there are unions in the federal government, I never said otherwise.;Unions are necessary.

As a whole, federal employees cannot bargain for pay and benefits, and that is not a race to the bottom. It's called containing costs rather than raising taxes; something local governments need to practice more.

If a government can only afford a certain level of pay and benefits, why should it be forced into debt , or to raise taxes to provide what it can't afford. Look at the big auto makers, the unions squeezed them into bankruptcy. Now after the dust has settled, the workers are making wages and benefits in line with the othe auto makers.

Who doesn't want more disposable income? However, we also need to understand the pot of money is only so big.

The race to the bottom you refer to is all these governments being forced into providing pay and benefits they cannot afford. Eventually something has to give, and like we are seeing in the news on a daily basis, more local governments are forced to raise taxes, and for those who can't, they are going belly up. Like a business, governments need to contain expenses in line with revenue.