Democrats said lawmakers should be wary of digging the state too big a financial hole, that its obligation to the pension fund will top $2 billion a year by 2016 and $1 billion or so will be needed to fund transportation projects through the Transportation Trust Fund.
A jobs training bill for unemployed residents is unlikely to survive Gov. Chris Christie's veto pen so long as New Jersey's revenue collections continue to sag.
The Christie administration reports that local governments can expect to save $267 million in the 2012 fiscal year because of pension reforms enacted in June.
The AFL-CIO took revenge on New Jersey legislators who supported a pension and health benefits overhaul by voting Thursday not to endorse any lawmaker who supported the deal, including fellow union members and the Legislature's most powerful Democrat.
Partisan bickering over New Jersey's $29.7 billion state budget resumed Tuesday, with fresh charges that Gov. Chris Christie used his veto pen to punish political foes and the governor's office condemning the Senate leader for "inappropriate and disrespectful" comments aimed at Christie.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on Tuesday signed landmark legislation that increases pension and health contributions paid by a half-million teachers, police and other public workers and removes the issue from collective bargaining for four years.
The New Jersey Senate has given final approval to a bill raising pension and health benefits costs to the state's more than 500,000 government workers.
The move to stabilize New Jersey's underfunded pension and health care systems by requiring public workers to pay sharply more for the benefits while suspending bargaining over health care was fast-tracked through the Legislature Monday, after Democrats joined with Republicans to buck the powerful public employee unions.
Bucking the state's powerful public employee unions, the New Jersey Senate on Monday passed a bill requiring sharply higher contributions for health benefits and pensions from more than a half-million government workers, while suspending unions' ability to bargain over health care.