The Jersey City Independent "

Photos: Steve Gold

A Healy administration proposal to move retired Jersey City employees to a less expensive health care plan failed to garner enough votes to be introduced at Wednesday’s City Council meeting.

In voting down the ordinance, which would have moved approximately 1,900 retirees from the traditional plan to a Direct Access Plan, council members said they were concerned about breaking promises to retirees, both from a moral and legal perspective. But the Healy administration fired back Thursday, issuing a release chastising by name those who voted ‘no’ and saying the proposal would have saved the city about $3.2 million this year and each subsequent year and that rejecting it will “result in higher taxes and more layoffs.”

The vote to introduce the measure ended up 4 to 4, with Ward B councilman David Donnelly, Ward C councilwoman Nidia Lopez, Ward E councilman Steven Fulop and Ward F councilwoman Viola Richardson voting no. At-Large councilwoman Willie Flood, who would likely have cast the deciding vote with those who sided with the administration, was absent.

“Penalizing people on fixed incomes to balance a budget is not the way to go,” Fulop said as he voted no, comparing the proposal to “an individual who lives large in life and then stiffs the cleaning lady.”

While concerns and opposition were voiced at the caucus meeting on Monday, it was not clear that the first reading would fail as it did, and administration members in attendance Wednesday seemed surprised by the vote.

The proposal actually failed not once, but twice. After the bill wasn’t introduced, assistant business administrator Greg Corrado later pleaded that the council re-consider the first-reading ordinance “so the administration can make its case.”

His request was met with protest from many in attendance, including several council members. But Corrado was determined.

“Perhaps the administration won’t make the case to support it, but at least let the ordinance in to let us make our case,” he said. “We would save $3.2 million in the first year. If we stayed in the state plan we couldn’t have been on the traditional health plan anyway. I ask that you vote for it so we can make our argument.”

However, it was clear from the get-go that the bill would have a tough time clearing this second hurdle.

“He has the right to ask,” Richardson said. “[But] there’s nothing you can tell me that will change my mind.”

Balancing the budget “on the backs of retirees with fixed incomes” is unacceptable, said Fulop.

“It is not a fair situation for retirees when there are other ways to address the budget,” he continued. “The council was clear. The council are not puppets, they are nine people capable of making their own decision, and four people voted no.”

Still, Corrado maintained his request that the council re-consider the ordinance through a motion, so that it would not have to wait six months to be re-introduced. Ironically, the administration pushed to create that wait time in March to prevent Fulop from re-introducing failed ordinances. And that irony was not lost on the Downtown councilman and mayoral hopeful Wednesday night.

“I find it insulting that the six-month wait ordinance was a direct attack on me restricting ordinances I introduced,” he said. “Certain people on this council thought it was prudent to make sure that they couldn’t come up for six months. But straight away you see two standards: when they want something for free and [when they want] to take something away. It’s insulting.”

Ward A councilman Michael Sottolano, who had already voted to introduce the measure, made the motion to reconsider, a motion which was seconded by Ward D councilman Bill Gaughan before failing along the same lines that the earlier vote did.

Gaughan and others who voted to introduce said they hoped to use the two-week period between introduction and final vote to get down to business and figure out the nitty-gritty details of the proposal.

“If we don’t have enough information or we have some questions, the introduction of a first-reading process [will give] two weeks to really hash it out,” he said. “I was under impression that’s what we were going to do here. I vote ‘aye’.”

As she once again voted no, Lopez said she’d received many calls from residents upset about this proposal. Once of those was from Judge Hector Rodriguez, she said, who had agreed to take a salary cut while on the bench.

“The thing that influenced him was the [promise of] future benefits,” she said. “If he had known the city had the intention to change these benefits in the future, he would have made different choices.”

The Healy administration’s Thursday response to the vote was slightly more caustic than the usual City Hall press release, expressing “extreme disappointment” in the four council members “who voted no on a critical cost-saving ordinance.”

Pointing out that all active city employees have already made a similar health coverage shift, the administration says the retirees would have maintained the “same level of service” under the Direct Access Plan, and that those who remained unwilling to change could have kept the traditional plan if they paid the difference in premiums.

“In this new Great Depression, we are forced to look at every possible avenue to bring relief to the taxpayers. This was a measure that could do that, with little impact,” Mayor Healy said in the statement. “Unfortunately, four members of our City Council are not willing to do what is right for this city.”

The legality of the change was questioned by several at the meeting, including Jersey City Police Officers Benevolent Association president Jerry DeCicco, who promised that the police and fire departments would join in any litigation against the city if the proposed ordinance ever passes.

But while corporation counsel Bill Matsikoudis admits the “law is evolving,” he says the administration is likely on the right side of the law.

“Given rising the cost of health care and the severe economic pressures on local taxpayers, the city believes the Court will recognize its efforts to preserve the same level of health care — for all its employees, active and retired,” he says.

Administration officials tell JCI today that they plan on resubmitting the ordinance as soon as legally possible.

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