monday NJ News Roundup

Good morning everyone and welcome to Monday's news roundup. I'll try to keep the commentary to a minimum but it won't be easy. Let's get right down to it!

Tom Hester Jr. reports that the days of nice gifts for lawmakers may be coming to an end. AP:

Free meals, hotel rooms, golf games, train rides and Philadelphia Eagles tickets — those were some of the offerings enjoyed last year by New Jersey legislators. But the days of lawmakers enjoying food, lodging, entertainment and travel paid for by lobbyists may soon be over.

Find out why.

The highest paid workers in the state? Here's a clue: it's not the Governor. Believe it on not, it's it was "Lourdes Montezon, a clinical psychiatrist who admits and treats mentally ill patients at the Sen. G.W. Hagedorn Psychiatric Hospital in Hunterdon County. Last year, Montezon made roughly $277,000, about $116,500 of that by working extra shifts." According to the pInky, 85 out of the top 100 paid state workers were mental health professionals whose base salaries were supplemented (sometimes doubled) by overtime pay.

Here's the latest about that horrifying (but titilating) tale from Atlantic City about a politician/priest, a hooker and a video camera. According to media reports, the blowjobee caught on tape was none other than City Councilman Eugene Robinson, described in his City Hall bio as a "minister of the Gospel" at the Second Baptist Church. Too bad he's not Catholic, he could just go to confession and move on with his life of hypocracy. Stay tuned.

Life ain't easy for the aging NJ politician. Tom Moran takes a look at the case of outgoing Sen. Littell.

Here's the latest on the "That's a Family" video that sent the Evesham school district into a tizzy. This story is not going away anytime soon, aparently.

The state budget review starts this week.

The Rutgers Camden provost who's at the heart of Wayne Bryant's no-show job lecturing gig (not to be confused with his arrangement at UNDNJ) takes umbrage with the suggestion that Bryant didn't deliver by saying "This was not a no-show job. We netted significant value out of it."

This just in via NPR: Assembly Budget Chair Lou Greenwald (who happens to represent yours truly in the Statehouse) has promised that this year's budget will be signed sealed, delivered and available for public scrutiny by June 15. That date is much earlier than last year. More to follow on this one, too.

The sun will set on Trenton today at 7:02pm. I am being literal, not metaphorical. Today will be 2:30 longer than yesterday and likewise tomorrow will be nearly 3m longer than today. Spring is in there air and I am so glad. This is an open thread. Fire away.