A recent article titled “SCCC faces budget cuts” states, “Sussex County Community College (SCCC) would have to cut its budget by $400,000 to $500,000 if Gov. Phil Murphy’s proposed budget is approved by the Legislature, interim president Cory Homer told the Sussex County Board of County Commissioners.
“Murphy’s budget would cut about $64 million in county college funding statewide, resulting in higher tuition for students and a reduction in programs and staff.”
Douglas Steinhardt, counsel to the Board of County Commissioners, also is a state senator representing District 23. He said, “It’s unconscionable to me that the budget in New Jersey ... has gone up in the last eight years almost $30 billion.”
The following paragraph is taken from the website of the New Jersey State League of Municipalities:
”The budget continues the Murphy Administration’s record of fully funding the pension system, with the $7.2 billion proposed payment marking the fifth consecutive full payment made by this administration. Under Governor Murphy’s leadership, total pension contributions are on track to exceed $47 billion.”
To put $47 billion in perspective, that amount of money could buy 940,000 $50,000 vehicles or 94,000 half-million-dollar homes, and if each home sat on one and a half acres, that would cover 220 square miles, which is approximately 42.5 percent of Sussex County’s 518.5 square miles of land area.
That, Senator Steinhardt, is why New Jersey’s state budget has gone up almost $30 billion in the past eight years.
Society frowns on government paying off college student loans or flash mobs stealing from stores. It’s time state government stop funding public pensions with money taken from cutting services and private-sector taxpayers who work 45 years and give it to public-sector workers so they can retire after 25 years.
Public employees need to start earning their free pensions.
Tris Tristram
Newton