HOLD ON, IS THIS STORY SUPPOSED TO MAKE US SYMPATHETIC TO THEIR "PLIGHT"?:

Layoffs spreading among N.J. public-sector workers (Maya Rao, 4/12/10, Philadelphia Inquirer)

They had it all planned out.

Jennifer Beese would give up her $65,000-a-year job as a sales rep and borrow money to go to graduate school. Her dream: to become a teacher.

Her fiance, John Cidoni, would support them on his income as a Lumberton police officer and save money by moving into Beese's home in Bordentown City.

The couple would marry in June and have their first child next year.

Now New Jersey's fiscal crisis has thrown their plan off course, as it has for thousands of public and private workers across the region.

Cidoni, 32, was laid off from his police job of seven years at the beginning of the month, along with five other employees, when Lumberton faced a budget deficit. [...]

Consider the picture in Lumberton, a Burlington County community of 12,000.

Officials there stirred outrage when they laid off several police officers in 2008 to help balance the budget. Hundreds of residents and police officers packed the township hall in protest.

This year police supporters also turned out in force, but Township Committeeman Pat Delany said he's heard a different story from residents, who are taxed out.

"I can tell you the public mind-set between now and then is a world of difference. People were mad at us for raising taxes 6 percent, not for reducing the size of the police force," Delany said.

Health-care costs are up 18 percent this year, revenues are declining, and homes in Lumberton are in foreclosure, he said. Delany said officials had to look at police officers because they were the highest-paid municipal employees, and their salaries made up a quarter of the budget. Meanwhile, the township has not filled the positions of administrator, registrar of vital statistics, and recycling coordinator.

Lumberton sought concessions from Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 201, of which Cidoni is president. Cidoni said the officers were reluctant to offer givebacks when the township could not guarantee they would not be laid off after 2010. [...]

As an undergraduate student at La Salle University, Beese thought she wanted to be a teacher but worried she wouldn't make enough money. So she graduated in 2001 with a degree in finance.

Eventually she landed a sales job at a trucking company - a post that came with a company car and an expense account.

She wasn't happy.

"Am I going to be a trucking saleswoman for the rest of my life, or am I going to make a difference with a child?" Beese began asking herself.

She and Cidoni started planning after their engagement last April.

Still in debt $10,000 for her education at La Salle, Beese decided to take out an additional $30,000 in student loans to get her master's degree in education, all while bartending three nights a week in Marlton. Cidoni moved into Beese's two-bedroom home in Bordentown City, turned in his leased Cadillac, and began supporting both of them on his $80,000 police salary.

Cidoni also initially started in business, working for Enterprise Rent-A-Car, before he realized his heart was in police work.