But the governor said Monday that if he loses the looming court battle, there is nowhere else to find the money needed to balance the state’s ailing budget.
"There is no Plan B. This is the plan," Christie said Monday at a news conference in Camden. "And I have continued confidence that this plan will be supported from whatever legal challenge that goes after us, as I’ve said from the beginning."
Eleven unions joined the fray Monday, led by the New Jersey Education Association teachers union and the Communications Workers of America, the largest state workers union. Both filed lawsuits arguing Christie’s plan violates the state constitution and the contract rights of hundreds of thousands of New Jersey’s public workers.
And grabbing the $2.4 billion would show a "flagrant disregard" for pension-reform laws Christie himself signed in his first term, the NJEA lawsuit states.
Workers began to pay more for their retirement and medical benefits in 2011, and in exchange, they won stronger contracts with the right to bigger payments every year by the state into their troubled retirement fund. Christie is now breaking his word, the unions charge, while workers continue to pay the higher rates for their benefits.
