Lawmakers are considering changing some of the rules governing retirement benefits earned by public employees in New Jersey, adding to the balancing act they face while working to improve the overall health of the state’s grossly underfunded pension system.
Several of the proposed policy tweaks, including those altering retirement benefit rules for public school teachers and members of the New Jersey State Police, have been billed as necessary to address ongoing labor shortages and to advance recruiting efforts.
Another seeks to enable more widows and children of state troopers who died as a result of illnesses sustained during the rescue and cleanup effort at the World Trade Center in New York City following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack to collect accidental death benefits…