Christie: Democrats not helping on local taxes

A year to the day after he proposed a "tool kit" of legislation intended to lower property taxes, Gov. Christie used his bully pulpit Tuesday to blast Democratic legislators for not taking action on the measures, while Democrats served up proposals of their own.

Drawing the most heated rhetoric from the Republican at a town hall meeting in Evesham was the policy of paying local government and school district employees for unused sick and vacation time. Under the current system, the governor said, taxpayers might just as well hand cash to retiring workers.

Workers "can have a little bag, like at a wedding, a little silk purse where they put each one of those checks from you," he told an audience of several hundred people at the Blue Barn recreation center.

Last year, Democrats passed a bill to cap payments at $15,000, but Christie conditionally vetoed it, saying he wanted to get rid of the compensation. Democrats have drafted a compromise bill that would cap payouts at $7,500, but he did not mention it at the town hall.

Though Christie noted that only four of his more than 20 proposals have become law, Democrats have argued that many of the remaining bills would not affect property taxes. And two significant measures - to mandate that public employees pay more toward their pension and medical benefits - are being negotiated behind the scenes by the staffs for Christie and State Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D., Gloucester), both sides have said.

Enacted tool kit measures hold property-tax increases to 2 percent, with some exceptions; cap raises that arbitrators can award to members of public-safety unions; give permission for colleges and universities to pool resources for insurance; and allow outside groups to file complaints about unfair mandates on local government.

But the fruits of bipartisan cooperation in this election season, when all legislative seats are up for a vote, were not discussed Tuesday.

In Trenton, Democrats said Christie's effort to force employees to use banked time before they take new sick or vacation days was potentially illegal, and cited an opinion from the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services that said Christie's proposal "raises due process and contract-clause concerns."

And in Evesham, the governor fired a barrage of numbers at the audience, saying municipalities face sick-time and vacation payouts of $825 million. In Camden, he said, public workers are owed an estimated $23.2 million - the equivalent of $770 for each taxpayer in the city.

Employees call such money the "boat check," Christie said, because they can use it to buy a boat.

Then he turned to the state's tax on gas, which he said one Democrat has proposed raising. "I'm the only thing standing in between [the Democrats] and your wallet," he told his audience.

Assembly Democrats said Tuesday that they did not have plans to raise the gas tax, which is among the lowest in the nation.

Assemblyman Louis D. Greenwald (D., Camden) offered a different approach to protecting taxpayers' wallets.

At a Budget Committee hearing, Greenwald proposed allowing residents in New Jersey's 566 towns to vote on whether their municipalities should be allowed to impose local sales and income taxes of up to 1 percent each. Any resulting increase in revenue, he said, would trigger a corresponding decrease in property taxes.

In addition, Greenwald's plan would reduce the state sales tax to 6 percent from 7 percent.

The state has an "addiction" to property taxes to fund schools and local government operations, he said at the hearing, where several mayors testified about their struggles in keeping those taxes down.

His tax plan, which has been drafted into legislation but not yet introduced, is similar to those in many states and would allow people to purchase better homes as property taxes declined, Greenwald said. It also would more fairly distribute the tax burden and provide relief for seniors and younger families, he said.

He said that Christie's tool-kit reforms involving shared services, pensions, and health benefits were not enough to reduce property taxes, which he called "the most discriminatory tax in the country."

When asked about Greenwald's proposal later in the day - during a news conference at the new Virtua Hospital in Voorhees, set to open May 22 - Christie called it "a monumentally stupid idea" and vowed to veto the measure if it crossed his desk.

New taxes are not the answer, he said.

"Most New Jerseyans would agree that we are taxed enough, and now we need to be taxed less," he said.