Supreme Court rejects NJ employees’ appeal over pension fund

[Calista241]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by BooScout (a host of the Latest Breaking News forum).

Source: Washington Post

The Supreme Court refused on Monday to disturb a ruling from New Jersey’s top court that sided with Gov. Chris Christie in a legal fight with public worker unions over pension funds.

The justices did not comment in rejecting the unions’ appeal. The high court order came less than three weeks after Christie ended his run for the Republican presidential nomination.

New Jersey’s Supreme Court ruled last year that the state is obligated to pay individual retirees their pensions, but it overturned a lower court ruling that would have forced the state to come up with billions to pay promised pension benefits. New Jersey’s pension fund has nearly $75 billion in unfunded liabilities, stemming from underpayment by previous governors, both Democratic and Republican.

....
The state ruling last year allowed Christie to propose making a roughly $1.9 billion payment to the pension fund in his 2017 fiscal year budget, well below the roughly $3.8 billion payment he and the Legislature agreed to in 2011 legislation.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-rejects-nj-employees-appeal-over-pension-fund/2016/02/29/c33ec8ea-def2-11e5-8c00-8aa03741dced_story.html

[Gidney N Cloyd]

1. The state's obligated to pay the pensions to retirees but it doesn't have to come up with the money?

Is that poor reporting or am I missing something that would reconcile those two points?

[potone]

2. I don't think that is it.

If I have this right, he has to pay current pensions, but does not have to fully fund future ones. Perhaps someone from New Jersey can clarify this.

[psychmommy]

4. correct

[Gidney N Cloyd]

5. Ah, the state needn't "come up with billions to pay promised pension benefits" for FUTURE retirees.

If you're already retired, you're covered (or at least until the state finds another loophole). But if you've merely been paying into the system for, say, 30-40 years, and haven't retired just quite yet then, well, sucks to be you.

[psychmommy]

6. sucks to be me lol

[Gidney N Cloyd]

7. Oh, no! I hate to hear that!

We've had our own notable pension wars in Illinois for several years now but the courts have come down on the workers' side. Public opinion on the matter has also largely swung our way after a lot of early vicious AstroTurfing by certain groups. Now it's really a matter of finally straightening out the tax situation here. I'm a lot more optimistic about my looming retirement than I was a few months ago.

[Jitter65]

3. Whatever it means, it means the pensioners get screwed. nt

[BooScout]

8. Locking...

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