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Coda

Greg B New state budget has

a few small omissions

My grandfather, who once worked as the administrator of a state government institution, told me about a technique used at budget time called "shooting the cocker spaniel."

"Here's how it works," he said. "No voter wants to hear about tax increases, and no politician who wants to survive likes to propose them. So what the politician does is say that his or her budget will remain flat or have only a small increase. The budget might even go down a little, but the public will have to give up something to make that happen. Then, the politician proposes killing some of the things the taxpayers want most (their cute little dogs), or need most, so they'll eventually go along with a more expensive budget in order to save them."

Sound familiar? Shooting the cocker spaniel is a very popular technique among politicians in New Jersey, and you see it all the time.

Nobody ever talks about reducing the size of government, they just talk about reducing popular or necessary programs or services. Cut the school budget? Fine, but we'll have to give up arts, and sports, and music and busing. Cut the municipal budget? Fine, but we'll have to reduce fire and police protection, maybe slash summer recreation and parks programs for the kids. And of course, we'll have to take a look at the library.

Last week, Gov. Jon Corzine proposed a $33.3 billion budget that includes his ridiculous, shell-game property tax rebate, but does not include any tax or fee increases for next year.

And how does he propose to make that happen? By reducing the size of the state bureaucracy? Cutting the number of state workers or the size of state agencies? By negotiating meaningful contract concessions from the 53,000 state workers represented by three powerful labor unions? By taking a hard line on waste, mismanagement and runaway spending by bloated agencies that provide little or no oversight?

Nope, he doesn't have the political will or courage for that. He's gonna shoot the cocker spaniel.

For starters, there's no money in the new budget for needed capital improvement projects for colleges or the disabled. There's no money for open space or farmland preservation. There's no money for the admittedly bloated and mismanaged Schools Construction Corporation, which was asking for $3.2 billion for new projects and is now looking at a blank white space on the budget line. There's no money for a lot of other things taxpayers in this state need and want at a local level. If we want any of that stuff, he says we're just going to have to come up with a new way to pay for it (by increasing taxes, most likely). And we're going to have to sell a major state asset, like the New Jersey Turnpike, in the bargain.

On the same day that details of Corzine's proposed budget were released, it was interesting to also read the details of a tentative agreement his administration has made with the unions representing those 53,000 state workers.

For months, Corzine has been promising that one of the major planks in his grand tax relief platform would be demanding tough concessions from the unions when it came time to sit down and negotiate a new contract. There would be blood on the floorboards, he implied, and it wouldn't be his.

So what will the state employees get under this new contract? Well, they'll get 3 percent wage increases for the first two years, which is just about what people working in the dreaded private sector can expect to receive. In the third and fourth years, they'll get 3.5 percent increases, which is a little more than those in the private sector can expect. There will also be some minor limits on pension payments for highly paid employees and the minimum retirement age will increase to 60.

They're also going to have to pay 1.5 percent of their annual salary for health care costs, which comes to about $900 a year for a state employee making $60,000 annually.

This requirement, naturally, is going to become the sticking point among union members as they debate whether to ratify the proposed contract. While the contract has been lauded by some union leaders, others - claiming the 1.5 percent contribution to health care costs cuts too deeply into their raises - have promised a fight. According to an article in The Star-Ledger, both Carla Katz, president of Communications Workers of America Local 1034, and Rae Raeder, president of CWA Local 1033, said they would advise their 16,000 members to vote against the contract proposal.

These people are obviously living in a dream world or some sort of altered reality - at least a world uninhabited by those of us not on the public payroll.

In the private sector - where many of us pay 5 percent or more of our salaries toward health care costs, if company-sponsored affordable health care plans are even available, and where we pay healthy co-payments every time we go to the doctor, dentist or pharmacist - paying a puny 1.5 percent sounds like an unbelievably good deal. It's just impossible to muster any sympathy for people like these public employees whining about paying $800 or $900 a year for a gold-plated health plan.

They're getting off easy. If Corzine had wanted to negotiate seriously and demand real concessions, he'd have demanded that state employees pay a percentage more in line with what we pay in the private sector. All 53,000 of those union members would have suffered instantaneous coronaries, of course, but at least their medical bills would be covered.

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My column last week about anonymous letters to the editor drew a lot of response from people insisting they have a constitutional right to make anonymous accusations and criticisms of other people. But my favorite reply came from a reader who agreed with me (go figure).

"With freedom of speech comes accountability," he wrote. "Brave men lost their lives fighting for this freedom. The least people can do is have the courage to stand behind their words."

Naturally, this reader signed his name.

Gregory Bean is executive editor of Greater Media Newspapers. You can reach him at gbean@gmnews.com.