Quote:
Originally Posted by mgburg
It would be interesting to see if the politicians ALL took cuts, if there were any social welfare programs that were "last in/first out" of the money trail and whatever else was done BEFORE they decided to cut the police & fire-fighting force...and even there...how many "supervisors" do cops and firefighters need?
Better yet, keeping the lower-paid and retiring the higher-grade should have been the way to trim.
And...have a "shoot first, ask questions later" attitude about the crime situation might improve the level of respect for law and order...then maybe...not. 
Besides...where, in any constitution, does it say that a city/state/county/municiple employee, union or not, is guaranteed a "lifetime" job with benefits (working and retired) that exceed even private industry standards?
Drop the bennies and start putting back into the tax base like everyone else...then maybe some sensible budgeting will rear its "ugly head" and come to the forefront. |
There's soooooo much corruption and good old boy bs here. But at least the new governor is getting support from the legislature to reign in some of this BS. Commissions, authorities, all these gravytrain perks have to be stopped. Citizens who can't save for their own retirements can't be asked to keep paying for govt. post retirement guaranteed benefeits.
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/01/nj_senator_pushes_to_give_chri.html
"What’s going on at the PVSC is just so excessive," said Weinberg, who has a separate measure that would place the sewerage commission under the control of Department of Community Affairs. "The organization has been used as a patronage pit for politically-connected individuals to inflate their salaries on the taxpayer-dime, and it’s time for the feeding frenzy to come to an end."
Meanwhile, officials at the PVSC yesterday said they were scrambling to respond to Gov. Chris Christie’s demand that they explain the agency’s hiring abuses. The governor’s actions follow a report in The Sunday Star-Ledger, which documented the hiring of brothers, brothers-in-law, wives, children and cousins by commissioners, who do all the hiring.
They kept track of the jobs handed out on a scorecard known as "commissioners’ rounds," which were numbered like NFL draft round choices, showing one commissioner picked his daughter-in-law. Another hired his wife. 
And with 567 employees, Passaic Valley has no formal table of organization spelling out the chain of command or lines of reporting, according to the authority.
Christie yesterday gave the PVSC seven days to explain itself. In letters that went out to each commissioner, the governor said the board "continues to resist the efforts of this administration to undertake reform in accordance with sound ethical and fiscal practices."
He demanded they each identify all individuals they have selected or recommended for hire, including justification for hiring them and their qualifications; a list of all family members or relatives, including the involvement of each commissioner in their hiring; an accounting of all promotions or salary increases for those individuals; and a list of all companies or consultants retained at a commissioner’s direction..........