Christie: End Payouts for Sick, Vacation Time

Governor Chris Christie pointed to the support of 234 mayors from around the state Thursday as he called for an end to sick and vacation time payouts for public workers.

Liabilities for unused sick and vacation day benefits total more than $825 million statewide, the governor's office said.

Morristown would owe current public employees $2,065,263 for unused sick and vacation time if they were to leave without using the days, according to the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs; the average home would contribute $327.18 in taxes toward that amount.

In a statement sent to press Thursday, Christie pointed to some communities with much higher tax impacts from unused time. New Brunswick, Christie's office said, would owe $14.5 million, or $1,330 per taxpayer.

“Every tax dollar that’s used to cash out unused sick and vacation days is a dollar that should be going to limit a tax increase and be sent right back to the taxpayer,” Christie said. "The only way to deal with property taxes is to lessen the amount we spend."

Christie  saying the payouts amount to a “a going-away present to public employees who had the great good fortune of not being sick.” He was joined by several mayors in person for the statement—his latest in a recent string of statements pushing for such reform.

Christie called on the Legislature to take action during the remaining 30 days of the lame duck session to do away with such payouts. The Legislature has approved a $15,000 cap on the payouts and Democrats have proposed scaling it back to a $7,500 cap, but Christie has argued they should be scrapped entirely.

“These numbers have no bearing to anything that’s real,” he said. “They’re just picking out numbers as a gift to public employees for not being sick.”

Morristown Mayor Tim Dougherty's name was not included on a list of 234 mayors Christie said support his plans; the mayors of neighboring Morris Township and Morris Plains were. Dougherty could not immediately be reached for comment.

Clarification: An earlier version of this post noted in its first sentence and headline Dougherty was not on the list of supporters. That statement was not intended to suggest Dougherty has communicated any specific position on the proposal to Patch.

Christie said the argument made by some opponents of the reform—that employees would start using sick days as time off—is without merit.

"I can’t believe that we’re not going to do a common sense reform because we say we can’t control fraud," he said.

State Sen. Loretta Weinberg, who sat in on the press conference, said Democrats have made attempts to work with Christie.

“As with most things the governor brings up, reality is often a little more complex than his rhetoric,” Weinberg said in a statement.

“We need to ensure that in our rush to reform the system, we do not push long-time workers to the exit. If we do, local governments will be faced with having to pay all of those retiring workers now, inadvertently putting themselves in an even more tenuous fiscal position," she said.

Christie called the reform a “common sense” measure and stressed the bipartisan support of the mayors across the state.