All about risk
Excerpt:
S3522, which could mean unions will need to expand their corral of bought politicians to those who would control the local part of the New Jersey Public Employee Retirement System (PERS), was introduced yesterday in the legislature apparently to the surprise of a Senate committee that rejected it, according to Politico.
Author(s): John Bury
Publication Date: 23 March 2021
Publication Site: Burypensions
Excerpt:
“Patients will die,” an unidentified administrator declared, according to a recording of the March 21, 2020 meeting first reported by NJ Advance Media. “You understand that by asking us to take COVID patients, by demanding we take COVID patients, that patients will die in nursing homes that wouldn’t have otherwise died had we screened them out.”
About 8,000 COVID-19 deaths — roughly 40 percent of New Jersey’s 21,000 COVID-19 deaths — trace back to nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. On March 31, Murphy’s administration directed nursing homes to re-admit residents who had been discharged from hospitals while recovering from COVID-19.
While Persichilli’s guidance also directed nursing homes to house these residents in a separate wing, in order to avoid infecting other patients, many nursing home administrators warned that such separation would be incomplete and would fail to prevent the spread of the virus.
Author(s): Tyler O’Neil
Publication Date: 15 March 2021
Publication Site: PJ Media
Excerpt:
Associated Press requests last year for written and electronic communications among officials about the coronavirus were denied as “overbroad,” a kind of catch-all under the state’s Open Public Records Act that permits officials to shield certain information.
The administration also cited emails among the governor’s staff as privileged under the law because they were “inter-agency” and “consultative or deliberative,” additional carve-outs that prevent the release of documents under the law.
The administration also denied public records requests seeking payment vouchers for personal protective equipment it bought, saying it would be disruptive. Asked about it late last year, Murphy said he wasn’t sure why the information was withheld and soon afterward, the state divulged a list of expenditures showing about $220 million in expenses.
Author(s): Associated Press
Publication Date: 14 March 2021
Publication Site: nj.com
Excerpt:
In addition to helping improve the long-term health of the pension system, Treasury officials are also projecting some significant budget savings can be generated by getting to full funding a year ahead of schedule.
Those savings, which will total an estimated $860 million over the next three decades, are based on the way the state’s unfunded liability accrues over the long term, the officials said.
Murphy’s administration should also be in a good position to manage the initial step up to full pension funding, thanks to a combination of factors, including money the state borrowed last year when it was expecting significant revenue losses would be triggered by the pandemic.
Author(s): John Reitmeyer
Publication Date: 15 March 2021
Publication Site: NJ Spotlight News
Excerpt:
Gov. Phil Murphy said he will think about increasing the mandatory retirement age of New Jersey judges beyond the age of 70.
“You do have the reality. You’ve got a 78-year-old president who succeeded a 74-year-old president, so this is not a blip anymore,” Murphy said in response to an inquiry from the New Jersey Globe on Friday.
When New Jersey approved a new State Constitution in 1947 that forced judges to retire at 70, the average life expectancy of men in the United States – there was only one woman on the bench at the time, Libby Bernstein Sachar in Union County – was 62.
Author(s): David Wildstein
Publication Date: 26 February 2021
Publication Site: New Jersey Globe
Excerpt:
This is a good time to review who will be impacted as state pension data on active participants in the retirement system has just been updated through December, 2020. There are no dates of birth so it is impossible to get an accurate count as some of those members who have between 18 and 25 years of service may already be age 55 but here is my cost estimate anyway.
All PFRS members: 40,532 with average salary of $96,364
Already with 25 years of service: 3,252 with average salary of $143,156
18 to 25 years of service: 10,543 with average salary of $118,750
If half of those eligible decide to retiree on their 50% pension for an extra 3.5 years that would come to an extra billion dollars coming out of the retirement system which is about double what the OLS estimated as the maximum.
Author(s): John Bury
Publication Date: 2 March 2021
Publication Site: Burypensions
Link: https://www.inquirer.com/wires/ap/look-njs-budget-proposal-taxes-schools-pension-20210301.html
Excerpt:
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy’s $44.8 billion budget proposal, unveiled last week, is a boon for labor and public sector pensioners, thousands of middle class residents and schools across the state.
….
New Jersey’s public worker pension plan has been underfunded for decades, but lawmakers and former Gov. Chris Christie began a ramped-up payment plan. Murphy wants to supercharge that plan and reach full payment a year early under the budget.
The payment would climb by $1.6 billion over the current fiscal year. The payment doesn’t translate to a boost in pensions for retirees. But it meets what actuaries have determined is the amount the state must pay to carry its share of the cost of pension payments to hundreds of thousands of retirees.
Author(s): Mike Catalini
Publication Date: 1 March 2021
Publication Site: Philadelphia Inquirer
Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/tax-hikes-for-high-earners-are-on-the-table-in-some-states-11614162600
Excerpt:
Budgetary pressures vary greatly, despite calls for more federal aid in general and tax hikes in some locales. In New York, state revenue collected from April through December 2020 was 4.1% lower than in the year-earlier period, according to data from the Urban Institute think tank.
In New Jersey, the drop was 2.4%. With tax revenue outperforming earlier projections, Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy on Tuesday proposed making a full payment to the state’s pension system for the first time since 1996. California has done even better, with revenue collections growing 1.2%.
While a governor can call on lawmakers to raise taxes, the odds of success for the various proposals depend partly on which parties control state legislative chambers. Additionally, Democrats in Congress have pushed to include money for cities and states in an economic-recovery package, which could shift the equation.
Author(s): Karen Langley
Publication Date: 24 February 2021
Publication Site: Wall Street Journal
Excerpt:
Gov. Phil Murphy?s call for New Jersey to make its first full pension contribution in 25 years is generating questions about retirement-system overhaul in one of the nation’s lowest-rated states, and how might the capital markets respond.
Murphy on Tuesday revealed the proposal to pay toward pensions roughly $6.4 billion, or about 14% of his $44.8 billion fiscal 2022 budget proposal to lawmakers. Overall spending would rise 10%. Democrat Murphy’s election-year budget would increase aid to schools and provide income-tax rebates to low- and middle-income families.
Making the full actuarially required contribution will need an additional $1.6 billion expense, according to Murphy. New Jersey was initially scheduled to earmark 90% of its full contribution this year under a ramp-up plan.
Author(s): Paul Burton
Publication Date: 24 February 2021
Publication Site: Fidelity Fixed Income
Excerpt:
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy is expected to propose making a full payment to the state’s chronically underfunded pension system for the first time since 1996, a sign that the blow from the pandemic to all states’ finances isn’t as brutal as officials originally feared.
Mr. Murphy, a Democrat, will call for a $6.4 billion payment to the pension system in his budget address Tuesday, senior members of his administration said. The Murphy administration has been ramping up pension payments and originally intended on making a payment of $5.76 billion for the fiscal year that begins in July.
In New Jersey, as in many other states, tax revenues have outperformed earlier projections. When the pandemic hit, states projected revenue would drop off significantly. State revenues ended up falling 1.6% in fiscal year 2020 and were 3.4% lower than projected before the pandemic, according to the National Association of State Budget Officers. While states expect revenues to fall 4.4% in fiscal 2021, which ends on June 30 for most, 18 states are seeing revenues come in above forecasts.
Author(s): Joseph De Avila
Publication Date: 22 February 2021
Publication Site: Wall Street Journal
Excerpt:
That $6.4 billion is what the actuaries hired by New Jersey for the specific purpose of providing absurdly low contribution amounts came out with for the 7/1/21 to 6/30/22 plan year. It includes a massive amortization portion to make up for decades of absurdly low contribution amounts (some of which were not even deposited).
Author(s): John Bury
Publication Date: 22 February 2021
Publication Site: Burypensions
Link: https://new.mta.info/coronavirus/ridership
Excerpt:
Updated February 18, 2021
We’re keeping this page up to date with systemwide ridership and traffic estimates for subways, buses, Long Island Rail Road, Metro-North Railroad, Access-A-Ride, and Bridges and Tunnels. You can see changes over the past seven days, as well as get a sense of how ridership and traffic differs this year versus last year. We will generally update the page on weekdays, excluding holidays, with the prior day’s figures. At times, data issues may delay the updates.
Download all the data we have published on this page.
Date Accessed: 18 February 2021
Publication Site: MTA