Breaking News-North Hudson Firefighters Association

FIREFIGHTINGNEWS.COM - January 16, 2010 - Once again, budget cuts have come back to haunt politicians as flames tear through buildings next to a closed firehouse in North Bergen on January 16th. Shortly before 5:30 AM, local residents began banging on the doors of the North Hudson Regional Fire and Rescue firehouse at 62nd Street and Kennedy Boulevard to report a fire. They did not know that Engine 9 inside was out of service. 911 calls were made after the attempt to get someone to answer the knocking proved fruitless.

First due units arrived at 6231 Kennedy Blvd. and found a smoke condition from a two story frame apartments over a retail store. A second alarm was transmitted. Fire was found traveling up the rear wall from the basement. Companies opened up in a attempt to stay ahead of the fire, but as the roof was opened, it became obvious that the flames had extended to the cockloft. A third alarm was sounded bringing additional manpower to assist in opening up in the fire building as well as the similar attached structure.

By about 6:20, fire began showing through the vent hole in the roof. Members were withdrawn from the roof but continued to open up on the second floor. The flames continued to grow and all firefighters were ordered out of the building. A fourth alarm was transmitted as a defensive operation was commenced on the main fire building and opening up and venting continued in exposure “D”. A ladder pipe and a Squirt went into operation in front of the building, several handlines worked the “C” side, and exposure lines were operated in the small alley on the “B” side.

A collapse zone was set up in front of the building after the top cornice fell. Shortly after, a large part of the second story collapsed on to the sidewalk, followed about a half hour later by the rest of the second floor. By about 8:30, all of the heavy fire was knocked down and the fire was contained to the original fire building and exposure “D”. No serious injuries were reported, and the cause is under investigation.

NIOSH RESPIRATOR APPROVALS TO BE REVOKED

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) is issuing this notice to inform respirator users that Global Secure Safety Products., Inc. is no longer producing NIOSH- approved respirators or replacement parts and is not planning to resume production in the future. Global Secure Safety Products, Inc. stopped production of respirators in April 2008 and has ceased doing business.

Global Secure Safety Products, Inc. (formerly CairnsAir Inc. or Neoterik) Respirators will be listed on CEL as Obsolete and Certificates of Approval will be Revoked

NIOSH will revoke the approvals of these respirators on December 31, 2009. Revoked status means that the respirators in question will no longer be listed as NIOSH-approved respirators. Once revoked, respirators bearing these approval numbers may no longer be manufactured, assembled, sold, or distributed as NIOSH-approved respirators. Furthermore, they may not be used where NIOSH-approved respirators are required regardless of the current state of maintenance.

President Canzanella with NJ Fraternal Order
of Police President Edward R. Brannigan announcing the filing of legal action in State Superior Court seeking the full funding of employer pension obligations.

PFANJ - On Tuesday, October 4, 2005, the Professional Firefighters Association of New Jersey partnered with the New Jersey State Fraternal Order of Police in the implementation of a lawsuit filed in Superior Court of the State of New Jersey calling into the question the legality of continued underfunding of the Police and Firemen's Retirement System. PFANJ President Tom Canzanella joined NJFOP President Ed Brannigan at a midday news conference conducted at the State House in Trenton for the formal announcement. Below is an excerpt from the press briefing.

The Police and Firemen's Retirement System of New Jersey (PFRS) held a surplus of approximately $938,000,000 in FY2000 drawing down to a deficit of approximately $3,574,000,000 for FY2004. This $4.5 billion dollar deterioration is largely the result of legislation (S-2586 of 2003) that permitted municipal employers of law enforcement officers and firefighters to defer and discount employer required contributions to the PFRS, in association with the State of New Jersey's own failure to make required contributions. During this same time frame, police officers and firefighters continued to make their own statutorily required contributions totaling 8.5% of their base annual salaries, one, if not the highest public safety employee pension contribution rate in the Nation. The State of New Jersey and its municipalities were first relieved of their obligations to make employer required
contributions in 1997, when legislation was enacted that revised the method of accounting and valuing plan assets. Under this new and more creative method of accounting, the value of PFRS assets was purposely and substantially increased, resulting in intended excess or more accurately, inflated assets. Accordingly, the State and its municipalities used those enhanced assets as a manner in which to relieve themselves of their obligation to match employee contributions for the purpose of tax relief. Despite the "free ride" afforded to both the State and municipalities, police officers and firefighters remained obligated, and so did they continue, to contribute 8.5% of their base annual salaries for which they have neither sought nor been granted any similar relief. In 2003, with those self-created inflated assets running dry, despite facing a growing PFRS deficit, and in order to provide continued budgetary relief to municipalities who had by their own admission made no provisions whatsoever to resume employer contributions, the State Treasurer proposed, and the Legislature adopted, an initiative (S-2586) permitting municipalities to pay only a discounted fraction of their required pension contributions. Adding insult to injury, despite the fact that the foregoing legislation in no way extended the State a like ability to skip or discount badly needed pension contributions, they did so nonetheless, paying only a fraction of their required obligation. Again, and to this day as we go forward, police officers and their firefighter counterparts remain obligated to contribute 8.5% of their base annual salaries serving as the sole and sustaining guaranteed plan income. As a result of the aforementioned legislation, and in association with the States non-legislated failure to required contributions, the PFRS funding ratio, which indicates the financial soundness of the plan, has fallen from 105.65 % for FY2000, to 100.85% for FY2001, to 95.82% for FY2002, to 88.45% for FY2003 and to 83.95% for FY2004. Enactment of the 2003 legislation, in association with the State's failure to make their own proper contributions absent legal legislative authority, deprives the PFRS of the funds necessary to maintain it on a sound actuarial reserve basis. An undeniable consequence of this failed scheme is the alarmingly significant reduction in plan earnings from investments and interest that would have been derived from skipped and substandard contributions. The foregoing serving to jeopardize the financial soundness of the plan and its ability to make good on earned benefits as they come due in the future. In that regard, the complete and total lack of prudent fiscal judgment demonstrated by the strategy articulated in S-2586, relying upon the exclusive use of employee contributions to either sustain or accordingly grow the plan, that resulted in the type of significant funding losses sustained over the last several years represents an abdication of fiduciary responsibilities in its purest form. The complaint seeks to declare the 2003 legislation (S-2586) unconstitutional, to end any conflict of interest that would allow the State Treasurer to determine type and variety of contributions aside from statutory law, and to direct defendants to make regular full payments to the PFRS for FY2004, FY2005, and beyond, in accordance with fiscally responsible actuarial calculations. The plaintiffs, Professional Firefighters Association of New Jersey, I.A.F.F.-AFL-CIO, and the New Jersey State Fraternal Order of Police, along with representative active and retired members and widows of members of these two unions who have been affected by this failure to adequately fund the plan, are represented by the law firm of Greenberg, Dauber, Epstein & Tucker of Newark. The PFANJ/IAFF and NJFOP represent the majority of career professional firefighters and law enforcement officers throughout the State of New Jersey and this Nation.

Named as defendants in this action are the State of New Jersey, John McCormac-Treasurer, the New Jersey State Senate and General Assembly.