Where do your tax dollars go?

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New Jersey, Running Pension Deficit, Tackles Double Dipping

As a municipal court judge in Asbury Park, New Jersey, Mark T. Apostolou spends two days a week settling traffic summonses and disorderly conduct offenses. For that, he makes $52,000 a year.

Add on six municipalities where he sits in a similar capacity, and his earnings balloon to $235,816, based on a list of the 50 highest-paid public employees in New Jersey who have more than one government job. If Apostolou, 52, retired now, he would be entitled to a pension exceeding $80,000 a year, under a formula from the state treasurer's office.

New Jersey leads the U.S. with the most workers receiving incomes or pensions from multiple public jobs, which is banned in many states. For more than 50 years, measures to prohibit the practice have died in the Legislature, where 19 of 120 current members hold another government job. The issue is being revived again as lawmakers seek cost savings after promising to cut property taxes that are the highest in the nation.

``Higher property taxes, lawsuits, bankruptcy, a completely defunct public-employee benefits system and ruined lives'' may result if the system isn't fixed, said Assemblyman Thomas Giblin of Essex County. He is a member of the legislative panel working on the problem.

The state is spending $1 billion this year, out of a budget of $31 billion, to pay pensioners, Treasury spokesman Mark Perkiss said. Governor Jon Corzine and the Legislature authorized putting $1.1 billion into the system for future pension
obligations, about 58 percent of the amount needed.

The system is $18 billion short of being fully funded, after lawmakers tackling budget gaps made only partial payments in recent years. Still, the $1.1 billion contribution is more than in the past 10 years combined. New Jersey, the 10th-most-populous state, has more than $30 billion of debt.
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In most states, holding more than one public office is illegal, unconstitutional or just not done, said Jon Shure, president of New Jersey Policy Perspective, a nonprofit organization in Trenton that researches state issues. In a June report, the group said New Jersey had the most politicians holding multiple offices.

A 2004 report by the Center for Public Integrity, in Washington, showed that 33 percent of New Jersey legislators received income from another government agency, a third more than the second-ranked state, Delaware, he said.