Welcome to the real world
Transport Workers Union officials who represent many of Brick's public employees are living in la-la land when it comes to health care benefits.

Three union officials and roughly 100 employees showed up at the Sept. 23 Township Council meeting to let council members and Mayor Stephen C. Acropolis know they were holding fast to their belief that workers shouldn't have to contribute a penny to the cost of their health care premiums.

They must be kidding.

It costs the township and the taxpayers between $19,000 and $22,000 to pay for family coverage for each employee. That includes dental, prescriptions, vision and health care.

That's already far above the national average of $12,680 for family coverage in the private sector, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation's annual employer health benefits survey just released in September.

The survey found that roughly 80 percent of workers with single coverage and 93 percent of workers with family coverage contribute to the total premiums for their coverage. The average annual worker contributions for single and family coverage are $721 and $3,354, respectively.

How much do Brick employees contribute? Zilch.

One union official said at the meeting that the town "doesn't run itself" and pointed to the employees who packed the room.

"It runs because those employees behind me made it happen," he said.

Well, here's a news flash. It's their job to make the town run. Any conscientious employee, whether in the public or private sectors, does his or her job. That's what they are supposed to do.

Brick has taken some baby steps to moving toward some employees paying a very small portion of their health care benefits.

Starting Jan. 1, all non-contractual employees will be required to contribute at least 1 percent of their salary toward health care premiums.

That's a very small drop in the proverbial bucket, but it's a start.

Brick and every other municipality in the state is under a state-imposed spending cap. That's the hard and difficult truth. There is no way to get around that, unless the township asks the voters to approve a cap waiver.

Here's a prediction. Taxpayers, many of whom already contribute to their health care premiums or don't have any health care to contribute to, would undoubtedly punch the "No" button on the question.

Unless the unions start taking a realistic view of the state of health care in 2008, chances are the debate is headed to mediation, possibly arbitration later.

Meanwhile, the township must still pay all health care premium costs, because the TWU contract expired last December.

The average health care premium costs for family coverage has risen a stunning 119 percent since 1999, according to the study.

To ignore that reality is an insult to Brick taxpayers, who can no longer afford to shoulder the whole health care bill.

And the township can no longer afford to tolerate that sense of entitlement. The reluctance to contribute even a pittance toward benefits could eventually lead to the loss of employee jobs. The township cannot continue to pay the full cost of premiums.

It's that simple. It's time to pony up.