Do the Right Thing ... Or Step Aside

BY ASSEMBLYMAN KEVIN O'TOOLE

As a member of the Joint Legislative Committee on Public Employee Benefits Reform during last summer’s property tax special session, I had high hopes that the Legislature was finally making progress toward real property tax reform.

In recent weeks it has become apparent that this process is at risk of becoming a complete failure. If Democrat legislators are not stopped from chipping away at these reform proposals we will be left with nothing to show for this summer’s hearings. More importantly the cost savings that were vital to any plan to reduce property tax bills will be lost.

When the four property tax reform committees issued reports in mid-November, we made 98 recommendations that could have resulted in as much as $2 billion in savings. My committee alone proposed 41 reforms to state worker benefits. The first signs of trouble came late last November when many of the key reforms proposed by my committee were omitted from the bill that was eventually introduced in the Legislature.

Next Governor Corzine sent a letter to Democrat leaders saying he wanted many of the remaining reforms removed from the bill because those issues should be left to negotiations with the state worker unions.

In the month since then we have seen a systematic effort to scale back these reform proposals. First the proposal to eliminate dual office holding was taken off the table. Then a group of Democrat Hudson County legislators sought to severely limit the authority of the new state comptroller by changing that bill to prohibit the comptroller’s office from looking into spending in municipalities or school districts.

What will be left of this reform when this process is concluded, and how much money will we really save now that these proposals have been watered down? It has gotten so bad that Governor Corzine is reportedly afraid to leave the state for he fears his Democrat colleagues will pass a watered down reform bill and sign it into law in his absence. This is absurd.

It is time for the Democrats to get serious about reform and serious about property tax relief. After five years and 35 percent increases in property tax bills, enough is enough. If the Democrats are not willing to do the right thing to provide relief to beleaguered taxpayers, they should step aside and let Republicans take our best shot.