A member of the public told the Bergen County commissioners he supports a surtax on part‑time payroll for large employers in the county to discourage employers from splitting full‑time jobs into part‑time positions to avoid paying benefits.
The commenter, who identified himself in the transcript as Farish, said the practice reduces employer costs for health care, vacation and sick leave and shifts unpaid medical bills to hospitals and ultimately to the community. “The solution I'm proposing is to surcharge the part time hourly labor, enough to dissuade these companies, to incentivize them to stop doing that, and also to raise enough money so that the cost shifting that they're doing … winds up that unpaid bill becomes part of the overhead for the hospital,” he said.
He argued the surtax would both discourage the practice and raise revenue to offset community costs. He also told commissioners he does not expect large employers would leave the county because, he said, “big employers have benefits from opening their shops in this county” including local consumer demand.
What happened at the meeting: the speaker offered the proposal during the public comment period. No commissioner vote or formal staff assignment to study a surtax was recorded in the portion of the transcript provided.
Details from the comments: the proposal targeted “large employers in the county” and would surcharge part‑time hourly labor; the commenter framed the policy as both punitive (to change employer behavior) and compensatory (to recover costs from unpaid medical care). The public comment did not specify a surtax rate, a legal mechanism for collection, or an implementing ordinance, and the transcript contains a brief exchange at the start where the speaker clarifies his name.
Attribution and next steps: the transcript records the suggestion as public comment only; the commission did not record any motion or formal direction tied to the surtax in the provided transcript.