Christie Demands An End To Payouts For Unused Sick Days [POLL]

With less than 30 days to go in the lame-duck Legislative session, Governor Christie is once again demanding that lawmakers pass a measure to abolish Jersey’s unused sick day payout system – that lets retiring public sector workers collect mammoth cash bonuses for all of their unused sick and vacation days.

During a visit to the National Guard Armory in Teaneck, Christie said “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 taxpayers- instead, it’s not -it’s inexplicable to me – the policy that’s contributed to a nearly 70 percent increase in property taxes in the 10 years before I took office – an astronomical increase that burdened our families, and put a wet blanket on economic growth in this state.”

The Governor said 234 Mayors across the Garden state now support his call to end unused sick leave payouts.

“These mayors – republicans and democrats” said Christie, “understand that this issue is not a partisan issue – this issue is an issue of common sense … statewide, the total liability is 825 million dollars in property taxpayer money that’s being given as a going away present to public employees who had the great good fortune of not being sick.”

He pointed out if he agreed to the latest democratic proposal to cap unused sick day payouts at 75 hundred dollars “this statewide liability would go up to 3 and a quarter billion dollars – 3 and a quarter billion dollars of taxpayer money that is simply unaffordable…without reform, these liabilities will continue to accrue at the expense of the property taxpayers all across the state, including those taxpayers already facing some of the highest accrued liabilities today.”

The Governor stressed the current system is “another benefit that’s given to public sector employees that they’ve come to count on, but that we simply can no longer afford to demand from the highest burdened taxpayers in America…I thought this would be a relatively easy and uncontroversial part of the toolkit – this should be easy – it makes no sense…I’m really calling on the Legislature- let’s get this done during the lame duck session- this is a clean-up item – let’s finish it -, let’s clear the page on this – let’s get to the work of doing the right thing.”

Courtesy Governor Christie’s Office