APR 2010

ATLANTIC CITY -- Gov. Chris Christie today urged mayors to have “the backbone” to tell voters about New Jersey’s hard times and pitched his plans for a 2.5 percent cap on property tax hikes and other cost-saving measures as ways towns can avoid fiscal ruin.

“My call do you today is not agree with me or else,” Christie told a lunchtime crowd of about 400 at the New Jersey Conference of Mayors in Atlantic City on his 100th day in office. “My call to you today is decide that you’re sitting here because you want to fix the problem, not add to it. Decide that you’re sitting here because you have the backbone to look your constituents in the eye and tell them the hard truth.”

Christie said he will propose legislation next week to put a constitutional amendment instituting the cap on the November ballot.

The state currently imposes a 4 percent property tax cap, though towns can appeal for exceptions. Christie’s plan is stricter, allowing towns an exception only if their voters overrule it by referendum.

To help towns cope with potential loss of revenue by curtailing property taxes, Christie will offer a “tool kit” to cut costs by curtailing public employee benefits and pensions, revamping the collective bargaining process and civil service rules, and moving school board elections from April to November.

Pointing to the defeat of 58 percent of school budgets last week after he called on voters to reject them in districts where teachers did not agree to wage freezes, Christie said common political wisdom about the unpopularity of budget cuts has been turned on its head.

“I don’t think this is any reflection of my personal popularity,” said Christie. “I am merely giving voice to what the majority of people in this state feel need to get done.” Democratic lawmakers, however, said Christie’s proposed cuts in aid to towns and schools would force property taxes higher.

“Even if after all the sharing and cutting it turns out that the only thing left to prevent the utter dissolution of essential services is a property tax increase, (and) towns will get penalized for that, too,” said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Paul Sarlo (D-Bergen).

Holland Township Mayor Edward Burdzy said Christie was following through on his campaign promises. “I think we have to bite the bullet,” he said.

Mount Arlington Mayor Arthur Ondish said he supports the 2.5 percent cap, but “I just think it’s too quick. From what I’ve looked through of the tools and read about it, not a lot of it is going to help me and my town.”

Buena Vista Mayor Chuck Chiarello, first vice president of the stte League of Municipalities and a director of the conference of mayors, said his town made signifcant cuts and lost out on money it was due from the energy receipts tax. He felt insulted by Christie’s tone.

Gov. Chris Christie delivered a firm line on state finances to a crowd of New Jersey’s mayors Thursday, asking them to accept

“an uncomfortable reality” that local property-tax increases will not be used to fill revenue shortfalls.

The governor took the stage at noon as some local mayors sat down to lunch at the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa during the annual Conference of Mayors, wondering if Christie would smooth over concerns about how towns can meet state expectations of balanced budgets without their usual chunk of state aid.

He told the assembled group of about 300 leaders that he would push for a change to the state’s constitution that would cap any town’s annual tax increase to 2.5 percent.

To many who had publicly suggested that the cap should be flexible — to allow towns to pass utility rate increases onto residents — he shook his head.

Christie called the recent rejection of a majority of school budgets in the state on April 20 a “historic” turnaround from the apathy voters previously felt about those spending plans. From now on, he said, “the people of New Jersey want to be treated like adults.”

Putting any new tax increases on the ballot, he said, puts the question “into the hands of the people who pay the bills.”

At times his half-hour speech was interrupted with laughter but also ripples of murmured disagreement as mayors and local officials reacted to Christie’s recounting of his political battles to close a $10 billion deficit in next year’s budget.

To close that deficit, he cut $450 million in municipal aid, a gap town officials must fill while also having to revise defeated school budgets. To mayors’ groans of recognition at those twin problems, Christie paused to say he recognized “the thud we just heard was that landing in your lap.”

He said local and state officials now have no choice but to recognize their part in the economic mess — a charge he was able to make by also applying it to himself.

Criticizing the back-and-forth between local and state leaders over how and where to cut the state budget, he said: “Guess what? We’re the problem. Not me, not you.”

At that, several mayors said later, they put down their salad forks, having lost their appetite for lunch.

“I had steam coming out of my ears,” Buena Vista Township Mayor Chuck Chiarello said moments after Christie left the stage.

“I expected him to bring some concrete ideas. You know how when you visit someone’s house, you bring something, a loaf of bread?” he said. “Well, I felt he didn’t bring any new ideas.”

Christie told the crowd that his push for the spending cap would begin by May 10 — the day state lawmakers would return from their “budget break.” Christie said he plans to have suggested bills ready for lawmakers to introduce.

To lower the current 4 percent local spending cap to 2.5 percent would take an amendment to the state’s constitution, which voters would have to approve in November.

In return for towns following that limit, Christie also said he would push for limits to raises for public workers, reform of state employee benefits and civil service rules, and a way for towns to offset unpaid property taxes against state gross income tax refunds.

But Chiarello said those proposals would take “two to four years to kick in,” with any union contract renegotiations possible only as existing deals expire.

To follow the governor’s advice to approach unions to ask for an early renegotiation, Chiarello said he had looked at contract rules to see how that might work. “I see nothing in the law that allows us the audacity even to ask the question.”

Gary Giberson, a Republican mayor from Port Republic, said he saw Christie’s speech differently. “I’m elated at the compassion this governor seems to have — to want to have corrective ways of fixing things,” he said.

Other mayors from the Republican side struggled with the news of the property-tax cap.

“I’m not sure we can live within the 2.5 percent, because we’re struggling to live within the 4 percent,” said James “Sonny” McCullough, mayor of Egg Harbor Township. As his township had recently seen more than 100 foreclosure notices a month, he said, “It’s not a spending problem — it’s a revenue problem.”

Yet he shook Christie’s hand as the governor left the ballroom and said he admired Christie for facing the towns and talking about cost-cutting in a straightforward way.

“I don’t begrudge him for saying it,” he said. “He’s the one who has to deliver the tough news.”

ATLANTIC CITY — Governor Chris Christie is scheduled to make the keynote address today at the state's annual Conference of Mayors, held at the Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa.

Christie is scheduled to appear by 11:45 a.m.

His audience spent the previous day discussing the state's budget cuts - and how the budget squeeze is creating an undue burden on municipalities.

Those sentiments emerged Wednesday, in a three-hour hearing before the state Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee.

The meeting served as a clearing house for mayors’ complaints about the state government and proposed solutions to address issues for local government created by the state’s financial mess.

“Everything always does travel downhill,” said committee member state Sen. Jeff Van Drew, D-Cape May, Atlantic, Cumberland, who served as the former mayor of Dennis Township. “Don’t feel that we don’t know that on the committee.”

The mayors said cuts in state aid have served only to put a greater tax burden on homeowners, while much of the state bureaucracy that hampers their development plans remains.

“I personally think bureaucracy is strangling the state,” said Estell Manor Mayor Joseph Venezia, who complained that while the state cuts aid the Pinelands Commission prevents commercial development that would take the tax burden off residents.

He said a tangle of red tape drives potential developers away from the rural city, leaving its hands tied when trying to raise revenue. He said state aid cuts are contributing to a tax rate increase there that would have the median homeowner paying approximately $250 more a year.

“We have been mean and lean for a long, long time,” he said, “and now we are starting to be penalized for being a lean municipality.”

Buena Vista Mayor Chuck Chiarello also spoke before the panel of senators in the Borgata ballroom Wednesday afternoon. He said communication from the state about cuts and how they will affect small towns like his has been convoluted.

“I’m boxing in the dark,” he said. “I don’t know who I’m fighting with.”

The mayors, who mostly came from northern New Jersey municipalities, hit on common themes such as outrage about the state using Energy Receipt Tax money — which the state collects from utilities in towns and cities — to balance its own budget.

Some mayors said their governments deserved more state funding than other towns to deal with specific local issues of greater importance than other state-supported programs. Others said more cuts had to be made to lower taxes that they said drove business and qualified workers outside the state.

Beachwood Borough Mayor Ron Jones struck a different note than most of the mayors who described their troubling situations, talking about the beneficial things high taxes fund.

He said talk about high taxes in New Jersey in comparison with states such as Alabama, Louisiana and West Virginia left out discussion about the Garden State’s better quality of life and education system.

“Unquestionably, New Jersey is a better place to live than those places I stated,” the Democratic mayor of the small Ocean County municipality said.

Most of all, the mayors pleaded to simply be heard and remembered when decisions are made on a state level that directly affects them.

“We don’t want to be left out of the discussion,” said Piscataway Mayor Brian Wahler, president of the conference, “because at the end of the day, what the governor and legislature does is going to have to be implemented by the local governments."

Committee chair Paul Sarlo, D-Bergen, Essex and Passaic, assured the approximately thirty people in attendance that the legislators were working hard on the budget situation.

“We’re spending a lot more time with each other than we are with our own families,” he said.

A groundbreaking ceremony was held on Friday, April 23, 2010 for the new Richland Volunteer Fire Company that will be built off of Main Road and Route 40.

Yesterday, the Assembly Budget Committee held a public hearing on Governor Chris Christie's Fiscal Year (FY) 2011 budget proposal. The get together lasted for hours. Mayors want the Legislature to enact reforms that help local governments cap expenses. Students want cuts to higher education restored.

Buena Vista Mayor Chuck Chiarello told the panel that local officials need help controlling "runaway expenses" like salaries and health care costs. He's urging lawmakers to change binding arbitration, which sets salaries for police and firefighters who are not allowed to strike. Fanwood Mayor Colleen Mahrn says additional pension reforms are needed. Christie's proposed budget reduces municipal aid by $450 million. The Governor also has proposed a 2.5 percent local spending cap.

Committee chairman Lou Greenwald says yesterday's testimony, "Once again emphasizes this plain fact - Gov. Christie's budget plan directly targets senior citizens, students and the middle-class with painful tax and fee increases that would make it more difficult to live in New Jersey. This much is also becoming very clear - no one is buying Governor Christie's claim that this budget plan is based on shared sacrifice." He adds, "A budget that hits senior citizens, the middle-class, poor and college students with tax increase after tax increase and fee increase after fee increase is not shared sacrifice."

To many, the most riveting testimony came from New Jersey Education Association president Barbara Keshishian. She was taken to task for not urging teachers to accept a wage freeze and for not calling on Bergen County Education Association chief Joe Coppola to resign over an ill-advised memo.

School budget elections are being held today. Christie is still asking residents to vote down budgets in districts where teachers have refused to accept a wage freeze.

Keshishian said, "The state organization does not get involved in local district bargaining………They have the opportunity and the ability to make the decision on a local district basis as to whether or not they choose to re-open their contracts."

Webber asked, "Do you support it or do you oppose it or do you take no position on it?"

Keshishian replied, "I support the right of every local district to bargain its own contract."

"NJEA leaders could be heroes of our budget dilemma by simply saying local districts should consider a modest wage freeze and contributions toward their healthcare instead of watching the elimination of 6,000 to 10,000 teaching positions, many of whom are held by young teachers with promising careers ahead of them," says Malone. "I have been in education for 36 years and I cannot begin to understand NJEA leadership's stance on this issue."

Assemblyman Dave Wolfe says union leadership is not helping anyone. He explains, "The state NJEA leadership is shooting itself in the foot by failing to recognize the financial troubles of our state. I think a one-year wage freeze is preferable to teachers losing thousands of jobs. For the benefit of the profession and New Jersey's public education system, NJEA leadership should reconsider its policy of not taking a stance on this important issue."

Keshishian was also taken to task by Webber over refusing to call for the resignation of Joe Coppola, the head of the Bergen County Education Association. Last week, a memo from the BCEA to its locals was made public It included a closing prayer that read: "Dear Lord this year you have taken away my favorite actor, Patrick Swayze, my favorite actress, Farrah Fawcett, my favorite singer, Michael Jackson, and my favorite salesman, Billy Mays. I just wanted to let you know that Chris Christie is my favorite governor."

Keshishian personally apologized to Christie last week, but refused to fire Coppola. Christie spokesman Michael Drewniak says that if a student had made similar comments about a principal, that pupil be suspended and investigated by police. He says, "Do we think it was a threat? No, but it was a wish."

Webber and Keshishian has the following exchange yesterday……

Webber: You have not encouraged Mr. Coppola to resign?

Keshishian: No I have not.

Webber: And you won't change your mind?

Keshishian: No I will not.

"It's time to move beyond that and to begin to talk about the issues that are really important to the State of New Jersey," says Keshishian. "That is the funding of our public schools."

Webber says, "I'm not looking for an apology. You apologized. Mr. Coppola apologized. What I'm looking for is accountability…….An apology is fine, but when are you going to hold him accountable and ask him to step down for the bad example that he's shown for the school children?"

Keshishian responded, "I don't know how many times I have to answer that question. The answer is, no. I will not."

Christie's clash with the Njea has been going on for some time. Now, in Facebook messages visible to the world -- not to mention their students -- the teachers have called Christie fat, compared him to a genocidal dictator and wished he was dead. The postings are often riddled with bad grammar and misspellings.

"Never trust a fat f...," read one profane post on the Facebook page, "New Jersey Teachers United Against Governor Chris Christie's Pay Freeze," which has some 69,000 fans, many of them teachers. "How do you spell A-- hole? C-H-R-I-S C-H-R-I-S-T-I-E," reads another.

Christie's supporters have responded with a Facebook page of their own. "Teachers need to sit down and shut up. They live in a dream world where they work 180 days a year," it asserted. "Way overpaid to start with, they could never make it working in the real world."

The rhetoric has become ever more heated as residents of most of the state's school districts get ready to vote today on property tax levies that support district budgets. And while many of the postings are emotional, most aren't personal attacks.

Even in these tough economic times, teachers in most New Jersey districts have continued to get annual negotiated raises - often around 4 percent -- and don't have to help pay for their health insurance.

Christie has offered more money to districts that can get teachers unions to revise their contracts and freeze salaries for the upcoming school year -- and agree to start paying 1.5 percent of their salaries toward their health insurance. So far, teachers in only 20 of the state's 590 school districts have agreed to any concessions.

In 2006, the last year for which data was available, New Jersey teachers made an average of $58,000. The salary, in one of the highest cost-of-living states, was fourth in the nation.

To listen to the hearing in its entirety, http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/media/live_audio.asp.

Mayors from across New Jersey say layoffs and service cuts will get worse if they are forced to follow strict spending caps with no way to control costs.

The mayors want the Legislature to enact reforms that help local governments cap expenses.

Buena Mayor Chuck Chiarello told the Assembly Budget Committee Monday that local officials need help controlling "runaway expenses" like salaries and health care costs. He urged lawmakers to change binding arbitration, which sets salaries for police and firefighters who are not allowed to strike.

Fanwood Mayor Colleen Mahr testified that additional pension reforms are needed.

Gov. Chris Christie's proposed budget reduces municipal aid by $450 million. The governor also has proposed a 2.5 percent local spending cap.

Mayors from across New Jersey say layoffs and service cuts will get worse if they are forced to follow strict spending caps with no way to control costs.

The mayors want the Legislature to enact reforms that help local governments cap
expenses.

Buena Vista Mayor Chuck Chiarello (CHEE'-ar-ell-oh) told the Assembly Budget Committee Monday that local officials need help controlling "runaway expenses" like salaries and health care costs. He urged lawmakers to change binding arbitration, which sets salaries for police and firefighters who are not allowed to strike.

Fanwood Mayor Colleen Mahr (MAR') testified that additional pension reforms are
needed.

Gov. Chris Christie's proposed budget reduces municipal aid by $450 million. The
governor also has proposed a 2.5 percent local spending cap.

DENNIS LEVINSON AMONG HONOREES AT FR. THOM SCHIAVO BROTHERHOOD EVENT APRIL 23

Being recognized as a humanitarian is an achievement which has to be earned and Atlantic County Executive Dennis Levinson has been doing all the right things, which earned him that honor. He along with two other area leaders will be honored at the Father Thom Schiavo Brotherhood Service at Margate’s Beth El Synagogue Friday, April 23, at 7:30 p.m. Levinson will receive the “Humanitarian Award” for his many deeds on behalf of county citizens. Also slated for honors are CRDA’s chief executive Tom Carver with the “Brotherhood Award,” and Buena Vista Township Mayor Chuck Chiarello with the “Leadership Award.” The late Father Schiavo was pastor for many years at Margate’s Blessed Sacrament Roman Catholic Church and parish and a good friend of Beth El’s Rabbi Aaron Krauss, and a good friend of the Jewish community. A reception will follow the services. “I feel honored to receive this coveted award,” declared Levinson – and, we are sure, echoed by the other recipients.

A home on Millville Avenue in Buena Vista Township was destroyed by fire this morning. No one was hurt.

Buena Vista Township's municipal budget was unveiled Monday night, and while the tax rate is dropping significantly, the amount each homeowner will pay in taxes may increase.

The $4.427 million budget is a slight decrease from last year's spending plan. Because of a recent property revaluation, the municipal tax rate is expected to fall from 77 cents per $100 of assessed property value to less than half that amount, 35.2 cents.

The local tax levy will raise more than $2.3 million. Although it's different depending on the new assessed value of a home, Mayor Chuck Chiarello said the average resident with a home assessed at $100,000 will pay about $25 more on their 2010 tax bill.

Chiarello said the township had about $281 million in taxable properties during its last budget process. Because of the recent evaluation, the assessed value of properties has jumped to about $660 million.

Although the tax rate has fallen so steeply, the percentage of the budget each resident is paying for this year compared with last year depends on the reassessment.

In some instances, Chiarello said, residents may find themselves paying the same amount; in other cases, residents won't be so lucky. In the Collings Lake section of the township - an example offered by Chiarello - assessed home values have in some cases more than tripled.

The proposed budget is slightly lower than last year's, said Chiarello, who attributed most of the decrease to lost or expired grants used for various projects.

Costs, however, have increased. Health care for township employees has gone up 17 percent since last year and fuel, electricity and payroll costs have risen this year, too, Chiarello said.

In all, Chiarello said, about $250,000 was trimmed from the budget. That figure does not include the $180,000 in state aid the township could lose as part of Gov. Chris Christie's proposed budget.

In anticipation of a budget crisis, the township laid off two public works employees at the end of December. The total savings, which includes the cost of salary and benefits, is just more than $100,000.

The public hearing for the proposed budget is May 10, but Chiarello said it's unlikely that the spending plan will be adopted soon thereafter. The township routinely waits until all state budget issues are resolved before approving its own as a way to accommodate for any financial changes that may result.

The Buena Vista Township Democratic Club endorsed incumbent Peter Bylone, a 22 year committee member and Richard Harlan, a Buena Regional Board of Education member for the past two years.

Regardless of how Hamilton Township Committee votes on a $26.6 million budget Monday night, there will still be work to do.

The township’s budget shortfall has narrowed from $1.6 million, but the committee must still cut $400,000 in expenses. The budget under consideration would spend about 2.3 percent more than in 2009.

Township officials have scheduled days to furlough employees or close the municipal complex entirely, but so far no layoffs are planned. Nine workers lost their jobs in 2009.

Also Monday night, Buena Vista Township committee may introduce its budget. It, too, includes no new layoffs, although two employees have been let go and a third position diminished to part time since 2010 began, Mayor Chuck Chiarello said.

If the committee approves the budget as is, the tax rate would rise 5.5 cents, which has a greater effect in a township that recently underwent a revaluation, Chiarello said.

Hamilton Township’s meeting, including a pre-vote public hearing on the budget, will take place at 6:30 p.m. at 1601 13th St., Mays Landing.

Atlantic County residents or businesses affected by the mid-March rainstorms and flooding can go to a federal Disaster Recovery Center open today. Residents are encouraged to register with FEMA before visiting by calling 800-621-3362 between 7 am and 10 pm daily. They can also register online at www.disasterassistance.gov.

ATLANTIC CITY – A lawsuit accusing city legislators of improperly approving a $34 million tax appeal settlement with Trump Entertainment appears to be dead.

Superior Court Judge Valerie Armstrong on Thursday dismissed the joint lawsuit, filed by nearly every town in Atlantic County, because the court does not have the authority to overturn the decision of state tax judge.

City Council entered into a $34 million settlement agreement with Trump Entertainment on Nov. 1, 2007 over a series of property-tax appeals that spanned a decade. State Tax Court Judge Joseph Small affirmed the deal with his final judgment on Nov. 9, 2007.

The 21 towns sought to invalidate City Council’s resolution awarding the settlement in November 2007, claiming it was “arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable,” that it violated the state’s Open Public Meetings Act and was tainted by City Council President William “Speedy” Marsh’s conflict of interest.

Armstrong discounted each of the allegations and based her dismissal on her lack of authority to nullify the resolution without also negating the Tax Court judgment that followed it.

“If the resolution is declared null and void, so too must the (Tax Court’s) final judgment be rendered null and void,” Armstrong wrote in her decision, “something this court cannot do.”

The Trump organization had filed 19 separate appeals for assessments on all four of its casinos, including the Trump World's Fair, which was demolished in 2001. The Trump organization claimed it paid too much in taxes because assessors inflated the casinos' value.

Under the settlement, the city agreed to give the Trump organization $12 million in cash for 2007 and then $4 million per year in tax credits from 2009 to 2011 and $5 million per year in credits for 2012 and 2013.

But officials began raising questions after The Press of Atlantic City revealed that Atlantic City’s consultant, Pamela Brodowski, initially estimated the amount of the Trump tax refund between $1.65 million and $25.82 million.

Atlantic County government tried to start its own appeal, but in December 2008, Tax Court Judge Small ruled that the county is a "pass-through" entity, not a taxing entity, and therefore was not able to intervene.

Each municipality in the county owes a proportional amount of the settlement, ranging from Egg Harbor Township's share of $466,672 to Corbin City's $5,490.

The only municipalities in the county that are not labeled as plaintiffs are the defendant, Atlantic City, and Hammonton, which does not participate in the Atlantic County Mayors Association. The association led the lawsuit effort.

WHEN Republican Chris Christie campaigned for governor of New Jersey last year, he promised to turn Trenton upside down.

Voters - even Democrats - must have liked the idea, because they kicked out incumbent Jon S. Corzine in favor of a tough-talking former U.S. attorney who had virtually no experience in elected office.

Now, Christie has a white-knuckled grip on the Capitol, and yet, amid his trying to topple established Trenton norms, his approval rating has dropped by 9 points.

"I think the public is confused," said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute. "What we have right now is a governor who is doing exactly what he said he was going to do. It's certainly a breath of fresh air."

Christie, dubbed "Governor Wrecking Ball" by a Newark Star-Ledger columnist and praised as a reformer by Rush Limbaugh, unveiled a doomsday budget in Trenton last month that included deep cuts in state aid to school districts and municipalities. He proposed massive cuts to public transportation and Medicaid, all to help close the state's nearly $11 billion deficit. He also has pledged to veto any tax hikes.

"The day of reckoning has arrived," Christie said during his budget address.

About a week after he unveiled the budget, Christie signed sweeping pension reforms for public employees that include reimbursement caps for unused sick days and contributions toward health care.

"It's like cold turkey for the state," said Bill Layton, Burlingtion County GOP chairman.

Some say Christie's fresh breath has been a little too hot, like a fire-breathing dragon laying waste to municipalities and school districts across the state, with no regard to whether some have made budget sacrifices.

"I think part of the problem in New Jersey right now is that too much is happening too soon," said Chuck Chiarello, mayor of Buena Vista Township and vice president of the New Jersey State League of Municipalities.

"I have to admire the governor's spunk, but New Jersey didn't get into this deficit last year or the year before," Chiarello said.

"It's been a 20-year process. The governor could actually be jeopardizing our state economy. The economic impact this could have on our communities hasn't been measured yet."

In an escalating war of words with the powerful New Jersey Education Association, Christie has accused teachers of being unwilling to give up raises to save jobs or the high-school marching band. Christie called the union "bullies." The union said that he was picking on teachers to give tax breaks to millionaires.

"We expect to lose anywhere from 6,000 to 10,000 jobs," NJEA president Barbara Keshishian said. "There's going to be plenty of after-school programs cut, too. It's going to be devastating."

Ben Dworkin, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics, at Rider University, said that Christie was also proving to be a tactful politician, capable of creating a bogeyman out of public- school teachers.

"He really has the teachers union back on its heels," Dworkin said. "He's saying the reason your property taxes are so high, or the reason young Johnny's music program is being cut, is because the teachers are getting raises."

Earlier this week, Christie said that he would free up some state aid for school districts, if teachers were willing to accept wage freezes. His stance on the teachers' contracts has resulted in protests at schools he's visited recently, but it has also earned some unlikely supporters.

"We have to be in it together," said Senate President Stephen Sweeney, D-Gloucester. "Unions are supposed to look out for the whole, not the few. I would rather take less to make sure I could save my colleagues' jobs."

The fragile state of New Jersey's economy would make partisan politics seem like theatrics right now, Sweeney said. Both parties have to work together now, he says, because they have no choice.

"We're not just going to fight for the sake of fighting," he said. "These things have to be done. There's no more looking the other way."

Sweeney said that Democrats would pick their battles, and right now they're trying to defend the middle class. It's that demographic, he claims, that would suffer the most from decreased state aid to towns and schools, along with cuts to public transportation. Although Christie broke his campaign promise not to cut property-tax rebates for families making under $75,000, he kept his promise to the rich, Sweeney said, by not renewing an income-tax surcharge for families making $400,000 per year.

"The only campaign promise he's keeping is not taxing the wealthy," Sweeney said. "I told the governor to his face that I'm not going along with that."

Chris Daggett, who ran against Christie and Corzine last year as an independent, said that this year's budget process would have been grueling regardless of who won, but he admires Christie's will.

"I might not have done it the same way, but he's stepping up and he has the discipline. It's long overdue," said Daggett, recently named president and chief executive officer of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation. "He's in a tough situation."

Dworkin said that Christie, by taking drastic measures to address that "tough situation," has laid a mirror before all New Jerseyans and that they might not like what they see, hence the drop in his approval rating. Voters like their schools but not property taxes. They support teachers, he said, but not necessarily their unions. They claim that government is too big, but depend on it almost every day.

"People never realize how much their lives are subsidized by the government," he said.

Voters and special-interest groups will react in inevitable fashion, Dworkin said, by fighting for causes and candidates who will, in turn, fight for more state aid. The budgets will swell and shrink, and a tough-talking governor who vowed to make a change may be out of a job in four years.

The most refreshing things about Christie, Dworkin said, is that he doesn't appear to care.

"He always said he would govern as if he's only going to serve one term," he said. "That's kept people on their toes. No one knows what he's going to say or do next."

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