Ask Governor Murphy: September Recap

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC, and now return to New Jersey. Every month, WNYC's Nancy Solomon hosts Ask Governor Murphy, a call-in show with New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy on WNYC and public radio stations in Philly and elsewhere in Jersey. Yesterday, the governor addressed a new potential policy of merging school districts. Remember, New Jersey has some of the highest property taxes in the country, largely because of their focus on the quality of their schools, but also because there are so many individual school districts in the state that each of which needs its own little bureaucracy like 600 school districts in the little state of New Jersey.

Other issues that came up included a smoking ban in New Jersey casinos. Will they continue to allow casinos to be exempt from no smoking? That applies almost every other indoor space, how artificial intelligence might solve for the frustration New Jerseyans face when contacting a public office, what the governor thinks about the electoral college, and basketball. That was topic number one that Nancy brought up last night. Did you hear this? The governor is offering the Philadelphia Sixers a ginormous tax break to move across the river to Camden. We'll talk about all those things hopefully and more and take your calls. Hey, Nancy, happy morning after.

Nancy Solomon: Thanks, Brian. Hello.

Brian Lehrer: As Nancy usually comes on with us the morning after Ask Governor Murphy. Listeners, as always, we can take some of your comments or questions for Nancy on these morning-after segments. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Call or text. Let's start with basketball. Governor Murphy is offering the Philadelphia Sixers an opportunity to move over to Jersey. Let's take a listen to what he thinks New Jerseyans will get out of the deal.

New Jerseyan: The Philadelphia 76ers have been there a long time. This will transform Camden, community benefits agreement. We deliberately went out to the community, a bunch of the leaders there who we've worked with over the years, and made sure that they knew that we had their back. This will be a locally engaged staff.

Brian Lehrer: Nancy, break down this proposal, and why now?

Nancy Solomon: Yes, why now is because the Sixers want a new arena by the 2031 season and they're running out of time. The company says to get one built by then. They have been working on a few different proposals in City Center, Philadelphia for the past six years or so since 2018. I guess the governor and New Jersey, the Economic Development Authority, are seizing on that frustration and entering into the mix. They've got a rendering that they've made that is not based on anything from what the Sixers are planning to do, but they've come up with a beautiful rendering of what this would look like, so they're making their play.

Brian Lehrer: What would the tax break actually be? Who would actually get it? I heard you ask him last night, isn't there a history of stadiums and arenas getting big tax breaks because they're supposed to transform the economy of the neighborhood and then they don't?

Nancy Solomon: Yes, I think what's being envisioned or what's been offered to the Sixers is $800 million in tax breaks. These are programs that they sell. The companies get a tax credit over many years, so it's usually divided by 10. That's revenue that doesn't go into the state budget. It's not like cash paid out the door, but still, there's a lot of criticism of these programs.

The New Jersey Policy Perspective, the preeminent budget policy organization in New Jersey, is opposed to this deal and opposed to many of the tax break deals that the state has done both in the past and currently. The governor says he disagrees. He disagrees with New Jersey Policy Perspective. He disagrees with the criticism. He says if you do it right that you can create a positive economic development that does trickle down to the community.

What's being envisioned is a lot of land that is just north of the Ben Franklin Bridge. This is on the Camden Waterfront right across the river from downtown Philadelphia. Drop-dead gorgeous views of the city skyline. The area just south of the Ben Franklin Bridge has been the subject of enormous controversy over the last five years that involves the party boss, George Norcross, and massive amounts of tax breaks that went to build office buildings that really have not served the larger Camden community.

Brian Lehrer: I was just going to say and give you a plug that your phenomenal and highly-acclaimed and hit podcast, Dead End, it's all about these tax breaks by the Norcross machine, largely in Camden, and how they didn't actually produce benefit for the community. They just produced benefit for these developers. Maybe that's oversimplifying it, but I think that's your basic throughline. Murphy, who's no friend of George Norcross, argues that this would be different. Does he have a point, at least potentially? Because, currently, the Philadelphia 76ers aren't paying any taxes to New Jersey because they're in Pennsylvania.

Nancy Solomon: Yes, I think he does have a point in that this could be the kind of development that would bring a lot of people to the neighborhood and that it would spur a certain kind of economic growth to the Camden Waterfront that does not exist right now. An office building where people drive up, park their car, go to work, eat in the cafeteria inside the building, and then drive home, that has not produced any benefit for the city of Camden. A basketball arena? I think it's in the realm of possibility. He said it, but it might have gone past people quickly when we listened to that clip from him.

There are community benefit agreements attached to this. This is a very different kind of tax break program. Not very different. Let me put it differently. Murphy has made reforms and changes to the state's tax break program that really overturn some of the worst parts of it that were created by Chris Christie. Some of that has to do with community benefit agreements where the company getting the break has to agree to certain amenities that are for everybody who lives there. Then there are other ways that he has changed the program to try to focus it much more on true economic development for the state rather than just a giveaway to different corporations.

Brian Lehrer: I don't want the whole segment to become about the governor's proposal for the 76ers, but I will read one out of a number of quite pithy texts that have come in and take one phone call. One of the most well-worded texts says, "What a joke. You can't get trains that work into New York City and you want a new basketball team." Tony in Fort Lee, you're on WNYC. Hi, Tony.

Tony: Yes, I was wondering about this big project, Triple Five, that is still not paying their taxes and still not making money, and how he could offer another big giveaway when the people of New Jersey aren't even getting anything from the last one.

Nancy Solomon: Triple Five, I believe, is the American Dream project, is that right?

Tony: Yes.

Nancy Solomon: I think what Murphy would say is that that was a Chris Christie boondoggle and that his tax break program is much more focused on really deriving economic benefit for the communities that get these projects. To the answer of, "Why not more?" I actually asked him last night, "Why not more funding for infrastructure, better mass transit, better grants for homeowners?" Camden has a huge amount of housing stock that is in truly dilapidated state, so why not grants for homeowners to fix up houses or build more affordable housing?

The governor, he loves the saying, "We're going to do and/both." He loves saying that. I think it is possible that I think he is trying to do both. I haven't done enough of a deep dive into comparing, say, what's being given away in tax breaks and what's being invested in by the state to improve the lives of New Jerseyans. That would be a good project. I think it's a fair criticism, but that is his answer.

Brian Lehrer: By the way, did I hear you ask the governor last night? I was doing some other things while listening to the radio as people do. I kind of half-missed this, but did I hear you ask the governor if the team would have to change its name if it moved to New Jersey?

Nancy Solomon: [chuckles] Yes, I did ask that. I asked, would they become the Camden 76ers? He kind of laughed and he didn't really answer it, but I think he said, "Well, that would be great," or something along those lines. Let's not forget. We have the New York Giants, the New York Jets.

Brian Lehrer: New York Jets and New York Giants [chuckles] playing in New Jersey.

Nancy Solomon: Now, we're going to have the Philadelphia 76ers, but I have mixed feelings about this. I think when you go there and you see Camden and you see how close Camden is to Philadelphia, it's like Jersey City, except that the river is actually more narrow. Camden really is right there.

Anything that is going to build a tie between all of the really hot, booming economic development going on in the city of Philadelphia and Camden, which is just sitting there withering on the vine, I think there is something to be said about it and something to be said about claiming Philadelphia as something that Camden is in that world and in that sphere and might be happy to have the Philadelphia 76ers on their waterfront. I don't take as jaundiced a view as some do, but I do think there's plenty to examine with these deals. I think the most critical question is sports teams are highly profitable. Why are we giving away so much money to help them build their arenas and make more money?

Brian Lehrer: A somewhat supportive text says, "The Sixers already practice in Camden. They practice in Camden, where they have a beautiful practice facility. They want to move there." Teresa in Manhattan says she listened last night and wants to bring up another tax break that you and the governor talked about. Hi, Teresa, you're on WNYC.

Teresa: Hi there. Thanks for taking my call. I appreciate it. [unintelligible 00:12:28]

Brian Lehrer: Yes, you're way off-mic. Can you pick up a handset? Are you on speaker?

Teresa: Sorry about that.

Brian Lehrer: There you go. That's much better.

Teresa: I listened last night. I wanted to comment on the film production tax break because it was a little misleading how Nancy said that the history of that is that it doesn't create full-time jobs when the fact is that when you work in film production, which I did for many, many years, it's freelance work. The more productions that are going on and the more productions that come to town, that's how freelancers go from job to job. It keeps that vital workforce going. To say that they bring in people from out of town, yes, they do, but those are usually just department heads. They want to hire local crews because they don't have to put them up and pay them per diem, so I just wanted to clarify that.

Nancy Solomon: I think the governor would love it that you've called in to say that. That was the argument that he made last night. I based my question on a report by, again, New Jersey Policy Perspective. I think it's great to hear from folks who are local residents who are getting work from these projects. The governor is very excited and very committed to building up the film and TV industry in New Jersey.

They've created this massive project to lure Netflix to a big campus in Monmouth County. Lionsgate Films is building a studio in Newark. The governor said, "These are brick-and-mortar places that are going to not just be built with union labor, but they are going to have union labor working on those sites going forward." He defended the program pretty well, I thought. I don't know that anyone knows the exact numbers to what degree this is going to boost the New Jersey economy.

Brian Lehrer: WNYC's Nancy Solomon, who does the Ask Governor Murphy call-in once a month and usually comes on here with excerpts and to take your reactions on the morning after here at exactly eleven o'clock. Moving on from the question of moving the 76ers to Camden, Camden listeners, especially in New Jersey, will know that the state has some of the highest property taxes in the country.

According to NJ Spotlight News, "Schools are the largest driver of property tax increases, accounting for about 52% of the average property tax levy." This is a big issue for residents. There's a new proposal for merging school districts to try to reduce some of the costs. Before we get to the clip, can you set up this issue for us? What is meant by the term "home rule"?

Nancy Solomon: Right, so home rule. There are more than 600 school districts. That means a layer of expensive management for every single one. You've got a superintendent and assistant superintendents and all kinds of layers of management salaries that if you had larger units, larger school districts, you'd have fewer of those layers. You're always going to need about the same number of teachers, but you don't need the number of superintendents and managers that we're paying for.

What home rule refers to is this idea that local communities control their own school districts, make decisions about their schools, and make funding decisions about their schools. They set the property tax rates and collect the property taxes. Some of that money does go back to the state and go back out to schools, but the bulk of it is locally controlled. One of the hypocrisies of life in New Jersey is that everybody hates their high property taxes and everybody loves their home rule, local schools.

Nobody wants to make the connection and realize that if you want to fix the property taxes, you've got to give up home rule and create bigger school districts. I'll say one more thing, which I think is really critical to all of this, which is that race and class are really at the root of this problem. The reason why we have so many towns and the reason why those towns gave birth to so many different school districts is because the New Jersey Constitution in the 1800s allowed people in their community to leave their community, to secede, and start their own town.

What that did was it allowed the middle and upper classes to create barriers around their towns, create different towns, and leave low-income and working-class families segregated into their towns. We still have that today. That's what is making our schools more segregated. There is a lawsuit pending on that issue. That is why we can't solve the property tax problem because these really deeply felt sentiments about who is in your town and who you want to keep out of your town really mitigate against getting a good solution to this problem.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, now that more of you know what the term "home rule" means and how it applies to New Jersey, you will understand that term in this clip of Ask Governor Murphy last night and what he had to say about his proposal.

Governor Phil Murphy: We are the ultimate home rule state, including school districts. It is both our greatest blessing and probably our biggest challenge or curse in terms of property taxes. Everybody, Maplewood South, South Orange-Maplewood District must be the best school system in the state of New Jersey. In many respects, they are in that fight and they deserve that. That does not come cheap.

Brian Lehrer: The race and class issue you were talking about a minute ago, Nancy, is the heart of it as it applies to this, that the wealthier districts, which would tend to have student populations with less socioeconomic problems that make them more expensive to educate, get to segregate themselves from those problems and spending their money on those students rather than spending their wealth on extracurricular activities and enrichment and smaller class sizes, etcetera, for their own students. Is that a way to put it?

Nancy Solomon: Yes. Yes, I think that's exactly right. He brought up Maplewood South Orange because that's where I live. It's not exactly the best example of this because Maplewood and South Orange happen to be an outlier in terms of being much more diverse than many other school districts. I mean diverse in the sense that we have school districts that are majority Black and brown and we have school districts that are majority white like overwhelming majorities. That's the problem. Maplewood South Orange is not part of that problem. Just to the south of Maplewood is the town of Millburn.

It is a predominantly white, predominantly wealthy town. Boy, people are going to hate me about this. It would never, in a million years, vote to create a school district with Maplewood, South Orange, Irvington, East Orange, Orange. Orange, East Orange, Irvington, majority Black and brown towns, majority low income. You're not going to get a Millburn, which has among the highest test scores in the state, because they're teaching the kids with the most privilege and the most benefit. They're not going to merge with those school districts. It just goes to the heart of the whole problem and why it's so hard to solve.

Brian Lehrer: Would the governor's proposal force higher-income and lower-income school districts emerge? Would it provide incentives for them to do that and thereby reduce property taxes in the bargain? How would he accomplish this?

Nancy Solomon: He didn't bring this up because he has a proposal to merge school districts. He brought it up in an answer to a frustrated caller about property taxes, which we get many of those every month.

Brian Lehrer: That was the first caller, right?

Nancy Solomon: Yes, and he's a regular caller. It frustrates the governor that he gets on the air so much anyway, but that's a side issue. Anyway, so he was responding to, "Well, one of the reasons property taxes are so high is because of home rule and small school districts." I don't think we're going to see a proposal from him. Vin Gopal is a state senator in Middlesex County, or Monmouth County. Excuse me. He's talking about putting together a bill that would talk about merger.

Just to think about an example, Maryland has 12 school districts. It's really the other end of the spectrum. Just to give you a sense, 600 school districts versus 12, because in Maryland, they do it county-wide. They've had some success with their school system with those large school districts. I think it's going to take the legislature doing something about it. It's very hard to get this done politically because of all the reasons I have stated already.

Brian Lehrer: Here is Steve in Monmouth County, who says he's an ex-school board member with a perspective on this. Steve, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Steve: Hi. I want to thank you for taking my call. I wanted to offer an alternative perspective. The driving rationale for combining school districts is cost-effectiveness. I can tell you for a fact that many of the smaller school districts tend to be more cost-effective and educationally impactful than the larger districts in New Jersey. I can give you an example.

Some of the complications of combining school districts is the state law would require the contract terms for the unionized teachers to be able to cherry-pick the best terms when districts are merged. You end up with higher labor costs. That's the predominant cost in running a school system and the predominant cost to taxpayers. Combining school districts can actually result in higher costs and less effectiveness because you do lose control.

Brian Lehrer: Steve, thank you. Nancy?

Nancy Solomon: Yes, I have heard this argument and I have reported on this issue. It's been a few years since I've done anything on it, but I have reported on this issue in the past. I have put that in my stories, that perspective. I understand it. To me, common sense tells me that we need bigger school districts to fix both the money problems, the cost problem, and the race and class problem. Yes, there are a lot of people who are knowledgeable and say that this wouldn't save money. I'm sorry, but I find it a little hard to believe.

Brian Lehrer: All right, last thing as we start to run out of time. Smoking in casinos, one of the few indoor spaces where people are still allowed to smoke legally. The governor is interested in signing a ban. Here's what he had to say to you last night.

Governor Phil Murphy: I will sign it. We said from the beginning that the overwhelming legal case was this was not going to be upheld through the judiciary, that this needs a statute. It needs a law.

Brian Lehrer: What's the story there, Nancy?

Nancy Solomon: There has been a lawsuit filed by one of the unions that represents workers at casinos. The casino owners want to allow smoking because they believe that that's what their customers want and that they will lose money if they prohibit smoking. Some of the unions are upset about, rightly so, secondhand smoke. Certainly, a major health issue. That lawsuit has been going through the courts. Just a few weeks ago, August 30th, a judge dismissed the lawsuit.

We got a lot of calls last night from casino workers who are upset about that. The governor says, "Hey, we get calls every month about this." He's saying, "Hey, you're lobbying the wrong person. I will sign a bill if it comes to my desk." I'm not sure if he's being really genuine in that. Yes, he would sign it, but is he going to expend any capital to see that this gets done by the legislature? I guess that's a follow-up question for him. The legislature just hasn't been willing to do something on this. He says, "Go talk to them."

Brian Lehrer: I'm glad you brought up the union because people forget that the smoking ban in restaurants that Mayor Bloomberg originally proposed in New York City, and then it's taken effect in a lot of places, it was not to protect the patrons. People who didn't want the smoking ban in the first place said, "You don't want to eat in a restaurant where you can smoke? Go to a restaurant that has a no-smoking policy voluntarily that attracts people like you." That was never the issue. The issue is workplace safety. Anybody who works in a restaurant has no choice but to be exposed to that secondhand smoke for their eight-hour shift or whatever it is, and casinos included. I just want to emphasize what you were describing there that it's an occupational safety issue at its core, right?

Nancy Solomon: Yes, and if something were done federally, then the casino owners wouldn't have this problem because you wouldn't have customers choosing to go to say, "I don't really know where they are," but let's just say a casino in Pennsylvania instead of going to Atlantic City. I think it's reasonable that they don't want to be the ones losing money and other people making money that there should be something that's fair to the whole industry. Clearly, yes, this is a workers' rights and a health and safety rights issue. I think it's a real shame that, at this point, it's not being dealt with at all.

Brian Lehrer: WNYC's Nancy Solomon hosts the Ask Governor Murphy call-in once a month and usually comes on with us with highlights and good conversation the next morning. Nancy, thanks for today.

Nancy Solomon: Thanks, Brian.

 

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