Salvador Rizzo , State House Bureau

A bill that would loosen a state ethics law for Governor Christie, allowing him to profit from writing a book while in office, would also give hefty raises to the governor’s Cabinet officials, state judges, dozens of legislative aides and others.

The raises would cost New Jersey taxpayers at least $10 million a year and likely more, an analysis by The Record shows, at a time when New Jersey’s schools, hospitals and pensions for public workers have been subjected to deep budget cuts.

The top Wall Street credit-rating agencies have downgraded the state’s bonds a record 10 times under Christie, noting that the $34.5 billion budget and pension system have been underfunded and mismanaged for years and that the state cannot keep up with rising costs. New Jersey is now the second-worst-rated state after Illinois.

State law currently forbids Christie from drawing any income other than his salary of $175,000, a long-standing ethical restriction meant to ensure government integrity. Christie struck a deal quietly with the Democratic-controlled Legislature that would carve out an exemption for the governor to be able to turn a profit from published works while in office. The bill would also allow the governor’s top aides and Cabinet members, who are also now banned from collecting outside income while in office, to cash in with publishing contracts.

“I don’t see the purpose of it,” Senate President Stephen Sweeney, D-Gloucester, said Monday regarding the current ban on income from a book. “Whether this governor or the next governor ... why can’t they write a book? What’s the issue? And how much do you think he could make right now, writing a book?”

The two major candidates for governor on the Democratic side — Phil Murphy, a former U.S. ambassador to Germany, and Assemblyman John Wisniewski, D-Middlesex — said they opposed the bill to let Christie cash in with a book deal while in office.

Legislative sources told The Record that as part of the same negotiations on the book and salary hikes, Christie and lawmakers agreed to end a legal requirement that municipalities and counties publish official notices in New Jersey newspapers. That piece of legislation is being touted by supporters as a cost-saving measure for local taxpayers.

EDITORIAL: Government transparency would disappear without public notices

FIRST VOTE: Christie book legislation set for votes

State taxpayers, however, would pay an extra $10 million a year, at least, to cover the salary increases for the governor’s Cabinet, lawmakers’ staff members, judges, county prosecutors and clerks, sheriffs and a host of other high-ranking public employees.

Under the terms of the bill — which is being fast-tracked through the Legislature and up for committee votes on Thursday in the Assembly and Senate — each of the state’s 120 lawmakers would get an extra $30,000 for staff salaries. The four executive directors for the majority and minority offices in the Legislature — two in the Assembly and two in the Senate — would each be eligible for a raise of more than $30,000. The total allotment for all of these legislative staffers would go from $13.8 million to $17.5 million a year.

The governor would get an additional $1 million a year, approximately, to hike salaries for his Cabinet and the commissioners of the Board of Public Utilities, and an extra $210,000 for county prosecutors’ salaries. Salaries for most Cabinet officials are now $141,000, and $165,000 for all county prosecutors.

The salaries for state Superior Court trial and appellate judges and the justices of the Supreme Court would rise 3 percent in January and another 3 percent the following year. The extra cost would be $4.7 million a year after both of those increases kick in, The Record's analysis shows. That cost may rise, because judicial salaries would then be tied to the Consumer Price Index, according to the bill. Salaries for judges now range from $165,000 to $192,795.

Finally, salaries would rise for workers’ compensation judges, administrative law judges, county surrogates, clerks and sheriffs, and registers of deeds and mortgages, according to a special formula. And the $200,000 salary cap for the director of the Division of Investment would be removed, with no new limit. Salary increases for those officials are not contemplated in The Record's analysis.

“I will be voting ‘absolutely not’ on this proposal," said Sen. Jennifer Beck, R-Monmouth, a member of the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee, which will consider the bill Thursday. "This is just another example of politicians attempting to pass legislation when they feel that people are not paying attention due to the holidays."

No official cost estimate

Because the bill is being rushed through the Legislature, no definitive cost estimate of the salary increases has been published by government officials. The bill, A-4430, was introduced Monday. The nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services is currently working on an estimate that is not yet finished, according to a financial analyst, Thomas Koenig. But it’s unlikely that the public will be able to see it before legislative committees vote on the plan Thursday.

“Usually when we produce the fiscal estimate the sponsor has three days to look at it before we publish it,” Koenig said. He added that an abbreviated fiscal estimate is likely to come out Thursday after lawmakers vote on the bill in committee. Legislative leaders plan a final vote in both houses on Monday.

The governor's office says it does not comment on pending legislation, and Christie was not asked about his negotiations with the Legislature over the book and salaries on Tuesday while he was a guest host on a morning sports radio show.

The salary increases would add financial pressure to the deeply troubled retirement system for public workers, since a slew of high-ranking officials would get raises, and pensions are paid out as a percentage of workers’ salaries.

New Jersey’s pension system became the worst-funded in the country last year, amassing $135.7 billion in unfunded liabilities, according to Bloomberg data. Lawmakers and governors have neglected to fully fund the system for nearly 20 years.

New Jersey lacks the tax revenue to keep up with legally mandated costs for schools and pensions and has been sued repeatedly for shorting these programs since Christie took office in 2010. Christie has refused to raise taxes to cover those costs, and earlier this year, he and the Democratic-controlled Legislature cut more than $1 billion from the state’s yearly revenue stream by making a small cut to the state sales tax and eliminating the estate tax by 2018.

"The State House needs to be renovated, and workers deserve safe working conditions," said Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli, a Somerset County Republican running for governor. "However, the proposed plan is emblematic of New Jersey’s irresponsible fiscal policy and cause for taxpayers’ continued frustration and anger."