The public-employee unions suing for larger state-pension payments are ready for the New Jersey Supreme Court to hear the case, with arguments now scheduled to be held early next month. The Christie administration is equally prepared: It was the governor last week who asked for that step in the high-stakes litigation challenging his decision to break state public-employee pension funding laws.

An order issued yesterday by the Supreme Court officially put the matter in its hands, something many expected would eventually occur after Christie first announced last year that he planned to go back on his promise to make increasing state contributions into the pension system, which has suffered from years of skipped payments by Christie and a prior governor. It is now underfunded by as much as $83 billion.

Christie’s decision also broke a 2011 pension-reform law he signed that, among other changes, sought to establish the increasing state payments as a contractual right of the public employees.

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