Dana Redd began paying into the Public Employees' Retirement System in 1990. | AP Photo Redd hired for $275K state job a week after Legislature passes bill to pad her pension

CAMDEN — One week after the state Legislature passed a bill that would allow former Camden Mayor Dana Redd back into the pension system, an obscure university governing board hired her as its CEO at an annual salary of $275,000.

If the bill, NJ S3620 (16R), is signed into law by Gov. Chris Christie — it’s widely expected to be — Redd will be able to triple her pension. Christie must act on the legislation before he leaves office Tuesday.


Friday's meeting of the Rowan University/Rutgers-Camden Board of Governors lasted just 14 minutes. Only one member was present: Chairman Jack Collins, a former Republican Assembly speaker. Four other members phoned in. Redd, who is a member of the four-year-old board, was neither present nor on the phone.

No other candidates were considered for the position. The 49-year-old Redd, who left office Jan. 1, is a key ally of South Jersey Democratic power broker George Norcross and Christie. The board's current CEO, Kris Kolluri, is leaving to take a job at Cooper’s Ferry Partnership, a Camden nonprofit.

Kolluri confirmed that the CEO job is in the pension system. Redd would have to remain in her new job for only three years to triple her pension.

“You’re going to want to make this a political story, while this is a government story tied to development of educational principles with the two universities,” Collins told POLITICO.

Collins said he and Kolluri interviewed Redd and that she “hit every question out of the park.” He said he felt no need to interview others.

“We only went with Dana Redd. We had a position open [and] we had the experience of the last four years of what was needed in this position. And a unique individual happened to be here,” he said.

The bill to improve Redd’s pension was passed last week by the Assembly with the minimum number of votes needed and now sits on Christie’s desk. The Senate approved the measure late last month.

Redd began paying into the Public Employees' Retirement System in 1990. But in 2010, when she was elected mayor after serving on the Camden City Council, her pension was frozen at 20 years' service and at a salary of just over $92,000. That was because in 2007, the state Legislature passed a bill to bar newly elected officials from the pension system, placing them in 401(k)-style retirement programs instead.

The bill that now sits on Christie's desk was introduced in December and sped through the legislative process far more quickly than most legislation. It would allow Redd and a few other public officials in her position to re-enter the pension system and buy back the time they lost.

When it became clear the measure would not be signed into law by the time Redd left office as mayor Jan. 1, making her no longer eligible, it was amended to ensure that officials “will be deemed to have met the requirement in this bill for holding elective public office on the effective date of the bill if the person’s term of office expired within 30 days before that effective date.”

Redd would have been allowed to re-enter the pension system without the bill. But she would have been knocked into a lower tier, which would have severely limited her maximum pensionable salary. If Christie signs the bill, Redd would be allowed to stay in the first and most generous tier into which she started paying in 1990.

That means she would be able to base her pension on the federal pensionable maximum, which in 2017 was $270,000. If Christie does not sign the bill, she would be knocked into the fifth and lowest tier and would have to base her pension on the Social Security maximum wage, which in 2017 was $127,200. In addition, Redd’s pension would be subject to numerous other cutbacks that have taken place since 2007.

The bill would also allow Redd to qualify for lifetime health benefits.

New Jersey’s pension system faces $90 billion in unfunded liabilities. Christie and Norcross allies in the Legislature, including Senate President Stephen Sweeney, in 2011 enacted a law that required public workers to pay more for their health and pension benefits. And Christie has repeatedly called for further pension cutbacks.

Collins said the pension issue “never even crossed my mind” in considering Redd for the board of governors post.

“Not at all. And I’ll tell you what I think about it. There were 200 bills passed on that last day [of the legislative session], roughly,” Collins said. “This bill that everybody’s been obsessed with might affect five people in this state. You really think of the 200 bills, that’s what should be front page all the time?”