NJ voters: You won’t get a say in forcing NJ to make pension payments

TRENTON — Lawmakers have missed a deadline to place a question on November's ballot asking voters if they want to require the state to make quarterly payments to the public workers' pension.

Senate President Steve Sweeney says he didn't call the proposed constitutional amendment up for a vote because the state hasn't solved a transportation funding problem

He says transportation funding proposals under consideration could cost the state up to $2 billion a year, in which case it wouldn't be possible to afford the pension payments without painful cuts elsewhere in the budget.

The Assembly had already voted to put the pension measure on the ballot. Sweeney told New Jersey 101.5 last month he was reluctant to post the constitutional amendment for a vote until knowing how big a tax cut he’ll have to accept to gain Republican backing for a 23-cent per gallon hike in the gas tax.

“I want to get it done this year, but there’s always next year. But I’m not looking at next year. I want to get it done this year,” Sweeney said. “The point is to get it done. Listen, if we fail on the question, you know that gives the governor the ability not to put a penny in, if we fail on the question. We don’t want to fail.”

His refusal to post the amendment angered the state's biggest public worker union. The New Jersey Education Association rallied at the statehouse on Monday to call for a vote.

“There’s been a coalition of unions, public sector unions, that have been fighting for this for a long time. They’ve invested a lot of time and all of our money,” Charles Wowkanech, president of the New Jersey State AFL-CIO, said last month.

— Associated Press and staff reports

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