With less than two weeks remaining before the date Gov. Chris Christie’s administration hopes the Legislature approves a complicated transaction involving the pension funds and lottery, the idea sits in a peculiar place.
It’s not part of the state budget, but the administration would like it adopted before the beginning of the new fiscal year. It’s seemingly supported by many lawmakers, but has had just one hearing and no votes. As of the start of this week, it doesn’t even yet have a sponsor in the state Assembly.
And if lawmakers opt to vote on the proposal to commit 30 years of lottery revenues to the public workers’ pension funds, they’ll likely have to do so without the formal analysis of the major Wall Street financial rating agencies.
Sen. Jennifer Beck, R-Monmouth, says the lottery transaction is unusual and will give people pause, so she’d like to hear from outside experts.
“It would be nice to have some affirmation, in advance of the legislation passing, to know with some certainty that the rating agencies and those that are in the financial world view this as a sound, thoughtful initiative and that we don’t undertake what is a significant effort only to find that, gee, we were wrong and they are uncomfortable with it,” Beck said
