Aug. 8 (Bloomberg) -- New Jersey Governor Chris Christie named nine members to a commission he created to recommend changes to the state’s pension system, which he calls bloated and unsustainable.
The panel, which will have 30 days to issue an interim report, will wrap up its study in about two months, the governor has said. Christie, 51, began calling for more changes to the retirement plan after he skipped $2.4 billion in contributions to close a budget hole as income taxes dropped this year.
The group includes Thomas J. Healey, a former assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury, and Raymond Chambers, a philanthropist and United Nations special envoy and chairman of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark. Also named were Tom Byrne, founder of Byrne Asset Management in Princeton and vice chairman of the state’s pension board, and Ethan Kra, who runs an actuarial service specializing in financing strategies and employee benefits.
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“This commission’s work cannot be about politics; it must be about the cold, hard facts, which is why I have not appointed politicians to this group,” Christie, a Republican, said in a statement. “It’s time to think out of the box and be prepared to abandon the sacred cows that have long been off limits in reforming our entitlement programs to make them permanently affordable and sustainable.”
During his first term, Christie signed legislation requiring workers to pay more for pensions and health benefits as well as freezing cost-of-living raises and phasing in full annual payments into the system.
The governor abandoned the latter component when confronted with a deficit that may top $2.75 billion over the current fiscal year and the last one. A state judge last month approved his plan to reduce last year’s payment and has yet to rule on whether the governor can do so this year.
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