Noticias

State officials and public sector unions announced an agreement on Thursday to achieve about $75 million in cuts to health benefits for public workers, the governor announced.

Many of the savings will be found in adjustments to the structure of the health plan. Union members will now, at a minimum, pay a $110 in-network deductible for individuals & a $220 in-network deductible for families. The structure includes new co-pays on GLP-1 weight loss drugs, specialty medications, and lab visits and imaging.

The Legislature required the cut as state health plans face increases in premiums, inflation, and uncertainty. This year’s state budget requires a $100 million cut in the first six months of 2026; state government and labor officials submitted their proposals for cuts at the end of last month. Gov. Phil Murphy signaled he would sign a bill to lower the required cut from $100 million to $75 million, according to NJ.com. 

“Today we are making responsible and reasonable changes to the State’s health plans – broad changes which have not been made in nearly 15 years,” Murphy said in a release. “I am committed to working with the unions until the end of my Administration to provide solid recommendations to future State leaders on how the State can adopt best practices and get the best deals in the health care market on medical care and drug pricing.”

The cuts, which came as a surprise to the public sector unions, threatened to open a rift between state employees and Democrats in an election year.

“We have always believed that the best way to make public health benefits affordable for taxpayers and public employees is by working collaboratively with workers and their unions,” Coughlin said. “We are pleased that the agreement includes ideas which have been advanced legislatively. We look forward to reviewing the agreement and continuing our efforts to protect taxpayers from rising costs while providing affordable healthcare options to public workers.”

The Plan Design Committee, split evenly between state and union officials, will vote on the agreement; it’s expected to approve the agreement. The governor’s office said it will continue working with the unions to find long-term, sustainable cost-saving measures.

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The mayor of Bergen County’s fifth-largest town switched parties and endorsed Republican gubernatorial nominee Jack Ciattarelli on Thursday evening. 

At an event celebrating the announcement, Garfield Mayor Everett E. Garnto Jr. said he felt like he had no choice but to leave the Democratic Party because “the state is broken.” A couple of hundred people filled a gymnasium in Garfield for the event, headlined by Ciattarelli and Garnto.

“For the last seven and a half years, [Gov.] Phil Murphy’s policies have left us with sky-high taxes, soaring electric bills, and less safe communities,” Garnto said. “New Jerseyans deserve better. Jack Ciattarelli is ready to turn this state around.”

The New Jersey Globe reported the endorsement and party switch on Wednesday.

Garnto said he voted for President Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election. He is a former school board member who served twelve years as president of the Garfield Police Benevolent Association Local 46.

Trump carried the town by about 9% last year, while Murphy won the town by about 3% in the 2021 gubernatorial election.

Ciattarelli will face Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair) in November’s general election.

The former assemblyman also touted the endorsement of Dover Mayor James P. Dodd, a Democrat. He said the endorsements prove moderate Democrats in the state are looking to get away from Democratic state officials — and with the Democratic voter registration advantage, he’ll likely need strong numbers of independents and Democrats to consolidate with him in order to win.

“It’s not just Republicans who are crying out for change,” Ciattarelli told the crowd. “It’s unaffiliated, independent voters and yes, even moderate Democrats who’ve come to the realization that this current administration has failed.”

Garnto’s endorsement comes even as the second-place finisher in the GOP primary, radio host Bill Spadea, has vowed not to support the former assemblyman (Sherrill’s top primary competitor, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, endorsed the congresswoman on Wednesday). Ciattarelli said endorsements won’t be the deciding factor in the race.

“I do think at the end of the day, and I think the mayor would agree, it’s [about] what the candidate does,” Ciattarelli told reporters. “And what I do each and every day is get up and down this state and press the flesh.”

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Democrat Mikie Sherrill leads Republican Jack Ciattarelli by seven points, 46%-39%, among likely general election voters in a TechnoMetrica Poll for the New Jersey Governor’s race conducted for the conservative-leaning League of American Workers.

The poll puts Sherrill’s favorables at 40%-31%, and Ciattarelli at 33%-36%.   Among registered voters, Sherrill leads by just one percentage point, 37%-36%,

President Donald Trump has upside-down favorables of 39%-55%; nearly twice as many New Jersey voters think the Big Beautiful Bill will make their finances worse than better.

Gov. Phil Murphy favorables are at 46%-39%.

The poll has some errors: it misidentified Socialist Workers Party candidate Joann Kuniansky as Green Party candidate Joanne Zielinski; the Green Party candidate, Lily Benavides, was tossed off the ballot last week as a replacement for the original candidate, Steven Zielinski, who withdrew for health reasons.  Libertarian nominee Vic Kaplan was referred to as David Kaplan; either way, each of the two independents, fictional as they are, are polling at 2%.

Still, the poll numbers are consistent with ther polls over the last month.

TechnoMetrica Poll, aka TIPP Polling, had an A- rating from FiveThirtyEight.  Their New Jersey survey had a sample size of 1,524 registered voters and was conducted from August 25-28 with a margin of error of +/- 3%.

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Does acting U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey Alina Habba have the authority to continue carrying out her duties? A federal judge ruled last month that she doesn’t – and Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-Newark), by far the most high-profile defendant targeted by Habba’s office, agrees with him.

Asked today whether she thought U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann was correct in ruling that the maneuvers President Donald Trump used to keep Habba in office were illegitimate, McIver – who is currently being prosecuted by Habba for allegedly assaulting federal officers at an immigrant detention center – said “absolutely.”

“This is what this administration does,” McIver said. “They are breaking and bending and corrupting the rules to their likeness, for people who are loyal to them. It has nothing to do with merit, with experience, with qualification, with rules – they do whatever they want to do, and use it to benefit them.”

“At the end of the day, I’m not surprised that people are challenging what they did to try to keep her in place, because, in their mindset, it was wrong, and it’s not the normal process,” she continued. “We’ll just see how it plays out.”

Habba’s authority to serve as U.S. Attorney was challenged over the summer by two New Jersey defendants who argued that the steps the Trump administration took on her behalf, including firing a different acting U.S. Attorney appointed by New Jersey’s federal judges, rendered her ineligible to serve. Brann concurred in an August 21 ruling, though he immediately stayed his own order pending a now-ongoing appeal to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.

The challenge is entirely separate from the case revolving around McIver, who got into a scuffle with immigration officials in May during an oversight visit at the Delaney Hall detention facility. McIver has called the controversial charges an attempt at political intimidation, and her legal team has filed several motions asking a federal judge to throw out the indictment in its entirety because of its allegedly political motivations and its connections to her official legislative duties.

Those motions, however, notably made no mention of the questions surrounding Habba’s legitimacy as U.S. Attorney; McIver said today that she hasn’t had discussions about linking her case with the challenge to Habba’s authority in any official way.

“Right now, we haven’t thought about that,” she said. “I’m highly focused on getting my case through the process so that I can 150% get back to focusing on the work of the 10th congressional district. I am already 100% focused on that, but I want my other 50% back.”

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