Bill Text: NJ A4290 | 2024-2025 | Regular Session | Introduced
Bill Title: Eliminates dual governmental pay to members of Legislature for legislative duties.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Republican 1-0)
Status: (Introduced) 2024-05-06 - Introduced, Referred to Assembly State and Local Government Committee [A4290 Detail]
Download: New_Jersey-2024-A4290-Introduced.html
Sponsored by:
Assemblyman BRIAN BERGEN
District 26 (Morris and Passaic)
SYNOPSIS
Eliminates dual governmental pay to members of Legislature for legislative duties.
CURRENT VERSION OF TEXT
As introduced.
An Act restricting members of the Legislature to time off from certain work only as approved leave of absence without pay and amending P.L.1979, c.277.
Be It Enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey:
1. Section 1 of P.L.1979, c.277 (C.40A:9-7.2) is amended to read as follows:
1. Any person employed by any county, municipality, or agency thereof who is a member of the Senate or General Assembly of the State of New Jersey shall be entitled to [time off from his duties as such employee, without loss of pay] an approved leave of absence, without pay, from duties as such employee, during the periods of his attendance at regular or special sessions of the Legislature and hearings or meetings of any legislative committee or commission.
(cf: P.L.1979, c.277, s.1)
2. This act shall take effect January 1 next following enactment.
STATEMENT
This bill shall be designated and known as the "End the New Jersey Gravy Train Act."
Current law allows members of the Legislature who hold county and municipal jobs to take unlimited paid days off from those jobs in order to do their legislative "work." People with some measure of conscience, morals, and ethics would feel a tinge of embarrassment about this, but New Jersey politicians have long since moved past that. Taxpayers bear the burden of this insanity, while lawmakers ride the gravy train.
This bill would right this wrong. According to this bill, lawmakers who just gave themselves an undeserved raise to $82,000 per year will have to take unpaid time from their county or municipal jobs when they go to Trenton for their legislative "work" there. Anyone with a brain would understand that this is only fair and that the incredibly inflated and insane $82,000 a year they make as lawmakers should compensate them for their time away from their local government job.
This bill is a small step in an important direction of ending the obscene acts by members of the Legislature to pad their pockets at the expense of taxpayers.
