Retired, rehired, rewarded. . . .and raking it in
Public service is supposed to be enriching work, and by now you know why: Many public servants turn this calling into a double-dipping obscenity, then justify it as an accepted Jersey tradition.
Hundreds of state employees simultaneously collect high salaries and retirement pay, gaming the pension system with impunity by exploiting a loophole in the law. They come in all forms: state police, county cops, attorneys general, school superintendents, firemen, Christie Administration officials, and legislators who look the other way and keep milking the cash cow themselves.
The only way this ends is if taxpayers - assuming they resist the impulse to drive their heads into a wall - voice their intolerance for charades like the one reported by New Jersey Watchdog last week. It showed that 16 of our 21 elected county sheriffs (and 37 undersheriffs) collect two incomes for one job. Their trick is to use the "special retirement provision" of their public pension plans: They cash out after 25 years, then return to a similar post that is covered by a different pension plan.
Watchdog nominates Michael Saudino as the dipping king: The Bergen County sheriff collects a $138,000 salary plus $130,000 from his Emerson Borough pension. The career champ is Armando Fontoura, who retired as Essex County undersheriff in 1990, took an identical job with a different title three days later, and has doubled down ever since - amassing $1.35 million in retirement income over the last 25 years while also collecting an annual six-figure salary.
Fontoura admits this much, to his credit: "Obviously, the loophole shouldn't exist," he says, "and I support the efforts to eliminate it."
But he'll continue to exploit it, as will Joe DiVincenzo, who makes $161,000 as Essex County Executive, plus $69,000 in pension as the retired county executive.
Few legislators are interested in prohibiting the practice, because at last count, 18 of them also double-dip.
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One exception is Sen. Jennifer Beck (R-Monmouth), who says, "Legal or not, it's an outrage, and a slap in the face to every taxpayer in the state. Retirement income should not be collected until you're not working anymore - that's the premise of a pension - and the fact that public employees exploit it is unconscionable. Worst of all, they brazenly brag about it."
Lawmakers tightened the loophole in 2011, but only to prevent officials like DiVincenzo from retiring from the elected posts they still hold. Joe D. still collects twice thanks to a grandfather clause, inserted to avoid legal challenges. Meanwhile, the double-dipping methods employed by Fontoura and others remain business as usual.
Beck's bill would change that, if it's enacted and survives legal scrutiny. It would suspend pensions for workers who resume public employment with a salary higher than $15,000 - no exceptions.
She knows it may never get out of committee, but there will be many rounds of reform talk in the future. So even if the bill gets stuck, "the loophole will be part of the discussion, because it's egregious to the general public," Beck says.
As for those pensioners who think about challenging it in court, they'll have two choices: They can cease their double-dipping voluntarily, or they can prepare for it to be a campaign issue.
No one begrudges a public employee's comfortable retirement - especially cops, who spend their lives on the front lines of violence. But as New Jersey's pension deficit grows more onerous each year, state employees concede they have to make sacrifices. Now it's time for the legislature to do its part, starting with a look in the mirror - the only way to prove that its desire for comprehensive reform is earnest.
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