NJ taxpayers lose as convicted police officers still get their pensions

🔴 21 NJ police and firefighters retired with full pensions despite documented misconduct.

🔴 Taxpayers are footing the bill as failures in reporting and review allowed officers to collect benefits.

🔴 The pension system is already $4.4 billion in the red.

A new report finds that at least 21 police officers and firefighters retired with full pensions despite documented misconduct, including one conviction for child pornography.

Taxpayers are bearing the weight of the broken system and unreported misconduct, according to Wednesday's lengthy State Comptroller's Office report.

The investigation found that 21 members of the Police and Firemen’s Retirement System with histories of misconduct never had their records reviewed before collecting their pensions. It's state law that members must serve honorably to get their benefits, and the pension board is required to conduct a review of each individual at retirement.

Get our free mobile app

State comptroller warns of more misconduct cases

This report could be just the tip of the iceberg, according to Acting State Comptroller Kevin Walsh. Those members were identified using publicly available information, like news articles.

"These 21 former officers are the ones we found. We don’t know how many are out there who committed misconduct and are getting full pensions simply because no one told the pension board what they did wrong," Walsh said.

According to the report, there was significant misconduct among those 21 retired officers who received full pensions. The most "egregious" example was a police officer who retired while facing child pornography charges and was later convicted.

Other cases included law enforcement officers who were ordered by a court to leave their jobs, had criminal charges filed against them, or had been involved in repeated instances of misconduct.

Pension board decisions questioned amid $4.4B unfunded liability

The OSC also found inconsistencies with how the pension board decided which officers had served honorably. Officers who faced only minimal forfeiture included those who had:

🚨 obstructed and interfered in criminal investigations for personal benefit;
🚨 sent unwanted sexually explicit messages to a female victim;
🚨 repeatedly punched an arrestee after he was handcuffed;
🚨 posted racist messages on social media; and
🚨 were repeatedly suspended for unrelated instances of misconduct.

These bad officers are getting pensions at the cost of taxpayers. The pension system already has an unfunded liability of over $4.4 billion, according to the OSC.

A member with a salary of $100,000 who retires at 50 years old with full benefits will collect $1.25 million by age 75. That amount increases to over $1.6 million for officers who retire after serving for at least 25 years.

A major problem found in the OSC investigation was that many municipal employees responsible for sending details of misconduct to the Division of Pensions and Benefits failed to do their jobs; some didn't even know it was part of their responsibilities.

Report a correction 👈 | 👉 Contact our newsroom