>Tuesday, January 27, 2009
BY CLAIRE HEININGER
STAR LEDGER

https://www.nj.com/news/jjournal/index.ssf?/base/news-3/1233041150170760.xml&coll=3

Fallout from the financial crisis could cost NJ Transit $150 million, leading to increased fares or delayed capital improvement projects even as construction begins on an $8.7 billion rail tunnel under the Hudson River, officials said yesterday.

NJ Transit is one of at least 31 transit agencies in 18 states now vulnerable because of downgrades in the credit ratings of banks, NJ Transit Executive Director Richard Sarles told a legislative committee in Trenton.

NJ Transit’s agreements with AIG – the insurer that received billions in government bailout money this summer – have led to “technical defaults” that could force the agency to pay investors about $150 million, unless the federal government guarantees the transactions, Sarles said.

He said he believes a federal solution will be found before commuters are hurt.

“Any kind of increase would be a last resort, so I would hope not to get there,” Sarles said after testifying before the Assembly Transportation Committee. “But in the end it would require probably just deferral of some projects a little longer.”

If the agency was forced to pay, it would try to find the money by postponing expansion projects instead of increasing fares, which would have to rise by more than 10 percent, Sarles said. He declined to specify possible targets for delay, saying he hopes to avoid that scenario by reaching a federal solution with the help of Sen. Robert Menendez of Hoboken.

Sarles said other transit agencies – including ones in Atlanta, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. – have banded together to lobby for the federal government to use its AAA credit rating to back the transactions.

The agreements allowed banks to pay for equipment for transit agencies, if the agency agreed to pay them back and found another company to guarantee it, Sarles said. Together, NJ Transit and the 30 other transit agencies could be on the hook for $1.5 billion.

Sarles’ testimony came nearly two weeks after the federal government gave final approval for a new commuter rail tunnel under the Hudson River.

He said the project is on track to begin construction this summer and be completed by 2017. The tunnel would more than double the capacity for train traffic between New York and New Jersey, from 23 trains to 48 trains per hour, and state and federal officials say it will produce 6,000 construction jobs per year.

https://www.nj.com/news/jjournal/index.ssf?/base/news-3/1233041150170760.xml&coll=3

>Trenton may waive town mandates, developer fees

Monday, January 26, 2009
BY RUDY LARINI
Star-Ledger Staff

https://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index.ssf?/base/news-12/1232947510327210.xml&coll=1

A landmark affordable-housing law signed by Gov. Jon Corzine at an outdoor ceremony in the heat of summer is facing troubles in the midst of the nation’s economic deep freeze.

A big component in the law was setting up a funding source to help build more affordable housing: a 2.5 percent fee on developers of commercial and industrial property. But because of the recession, it has raised just a small fraction of the hundreds millions of dollars it was expected to produce, according to state Sen. Ray Lesniak (D-Union).

A Senate committee led by Lesniak, responding to a call from Corzine in his State of the State address, will consider a bill to suspend the fee today. The measure before the upper house’s economic growth panel would also relieve towns from building affordable housing as long as the state does not pony up money to replace the lost revenue.

Lesniak said the fee was expected to yield as much as $160 million in its first year — other estimates have been in the range of $80 to $100 million — but instead has discouraged development in an already depressed economy. He said just about $10 million has been raised from the fee in its first six months.

“This fee is an impediment to affordable housing,” Lesniak said. “Two and half percent of nothing is nothing. Our economy is sinking and sinking fast and this 2.5 percent fee is a drag on job creation.”

Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts, the major force behind the law, supported Corzine’s call for freezing the 2.5 percent fee. He could not be reached for comment late last week.

James Hughes, dean of Rutgers University’s Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, said suspending the development fee in today’s economic climate makes sense despite the need for affordable housing.

“The overall condition trumps anything else,” he said. “This is an extremely perilous economic time.”

Housing advocates, however, worry that the actions could water down a law that was enacted after a long grass-roots lobbying effort.

“We should be giving the changes in the bill passed six months ago — that Senator Lesniak himself sponsored — a chance to work instead of trying to undo those significant positive changes in the law,” said Adam Gordon, a staff attorney for the Cherry Hill-based Fair Share Housing Center.

Staci Berger, director of advocacy and policy for the Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey, questioned how it would affect more than 200 municipalities that already have filed affordable-housing plans with the state Council On Affordable Housing.

“It would be good public policy and certainly fair to find out how those plans are coming along before we stop them,” she said.

The New Jersey State League of Municipalities has opposed the 2.5 percent fee since it was debated in the Legislature last year, said director William Dressel, who called it “the wrong tax at the wrong time.”

Dressel noted the assessment on developers was intended to replace regional contribution agreements, which allowed upper-income suburban towns to pay poorer cities to take on their affordable-housing obligations. Opponents of those agreements, known as RCAs, called them a form of unspoken racism that kept the poor concentrated in cities. They were abolished under the new law.

“This (the fee), quite frankly, was going to be the funding lifeline for affordable housing,” Dressel said. “But we felt it was going to inhibit the development of affordable housing.”

Lesniak said his bill would waive the municipal obligation to build affordable housing unless funding is found to replace the lost development fee revenue. It calls for diverting $15 million from the state’s long-term obligations and capital expenditure fund to affordable housing. Lesniak said other revenue could come from anticipated federal stimulus aid.

Dressel said that as long as the state is suspending the fee, it is only fair to suspend the obligation to build affordable housing, a burden he said would have fallen heavily on municipal taxpayers.

Amy Whilltin, a spokeswoman for the New Jersey Builders Association, said the group had no immediate comment on Lesniak’s proposal.

In addition, Lesniak’s committee will consider bills that would exempt projects on property of the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, including the sprawling, $2 billion Xanadu shopping and entertainment complex in the Meadowlands and the Jets’ new football training facility and headquarters in Florham Park, from both the 2.5 percent fee and the obligation to build affordable housing.

Those proposals, sponsored by Sens. Paul Sarlo (D-Bergen) and Joe Pennacchio (R-Morris), are coming under fire from critics as a giveaway to Xanadu developers.

Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club, said Xanadu’s developers would have to pay about $50 million in developers’ fees to accommodate the hundreds of affordable houses its 20,000 jobs would require. “This is a cynical attempt to save Xanadu $50 million,” he said.

But Chris Eilert, Sarlo’s chief of staff, said the bills are expected to be changed to require the development fee be paid to the state, which would assume the obligation of building the affordable housing.

Rudy Larini may be reached at [email protected] or at (609) 989-0379.

https://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index.ssf?/base/news-12/1232947510327210.xml&coll=1

>Friday, January 23, 2009

BY EVONNE COUTROS

NorthJersey.com

STAFF WRITER

RIDGEWOOD — The Village Council will decide next week whether to move ahead with architectural plans for a proposed $13.9 million aquatic center that includes four pools, water slides, expanded locker and concession facilities, and a playground.

The plan would replace the sand-bottom Graydon Pool on Linwood and North Maple avenues and follows two years of meetings, tours of aquatic facilities, pool chat sessions, studies and surveys.

Village Manager James Ten Hoeve has concerns about the plan, which would rely on membership fees for funding.

“The point is to make an in-ground state-of-the-art facility which, based on information, should attract membership,” Ten Hoeve said. “The key, the absolute key to this whole thing working, is membership. They need members.”

Economic times are a worry, Ten Hoeve said. “What makes me nervous is the state of the economy, people losing jobs, or not being given their job bonuses,” he said.

The facility as presented would include a toddler pool, leisure pool with two slides and bench seating, a dive well with one- and two-meter boards, and an 8-lane, 25-yard lap pool with starting blocks.

There would be new landscaping, a sand play area, a renovated and expanded concession area, and new locker rooms with showers.

The pool would be open to non-residents who would pay a higher rate than the annual $150 per person fee and the maximum fee cap of $750 per year set for a resident family, Ten Hoeve said.

Non-residents would be permitted to join if the 8,000 membership level is not reached through resident memberships.

That’s where Ten Hoeve said he has concerns for the village.

“I don’t know how to measure will people pay $750 for their family versus going to Long Beach Island for a week,” Ten Hoeve said. “The projection is they will have 8,000 members within three years of its opening.

The village would issue a bond for the cost of construction and design over 25 years. Ten Hoeve said it could have a 30-year life because the project qualifies under the local bond.

The facility could open in 2011 and would be self-funded with membership fees picking up the debt.

The dollar figures are based on 5,000 residents joining the new aquatic center, but Ten Hoeve said the village has to rely on the Graydon Pool Advisory Committee consultants’ projection of membership.

Current membership at the sand-bottom Graydon Pool is around 3,900, Ten Hoeve said.

>It is at times almost overwhelming with all of the things that are happening or proposed to happen in the Village and with the BOE. Economically the timing probably could not be worse for many/most of these projects and unfortunately things will probably deteriorate further before improving. However, I think an important thing for people to remember and to think about for the future is the reason all of this is happening now is that we as a town and a school system totally dropped the ball for years and years and let our facilities fall far behind what other towns and school systems were building/renovating. The residents of Ridgewood are not stupid and the level of disrepair has reached such a point that people are demanding the issues be addressed. Many very good, very active, very interested people in town have looked at the facilities and helped to lay out plans that will hopefully result in us having the kind of facilities that the people and children of Ridgewood should have. It is going to be very difficult to figure out how to prioritize the projects and even more difficult to figure out how to pay for them. I think it is important not to place blame on the messengers presenting these plans to the public. If you want to place blame take a look back at the former BOE’s and Villge Council’s who sat on their hands while our facilities crumbled.

If we are going to get anything done, The Village Council and the BOE had better be in constant contact with each other through this process and prioritizing what they each want and need. If the BOE attempts to float a $50 million dollar bond issue at the same time they are laying off teachers and at the Village is looking to spend $25 million (Habernickel, Stedler, Master Plan, Graydon) nothing is going to get approved, nothing will get fixed and 5 years from now our facilities will be that much worse, the costs will be that much higher and everyone will be asking, “Why?”

>January 21, 2009

Schools advised to curb spending
https://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/200901210310/NEWS01/901210336

New Jersey’s education commissioner has told the state’s school districts that they should freeze all nonessential spending for the rest of this school year.

Commissioner Lucille Davy, in a recent letter to school districts, said it’s unclear how much state aid will reach local districts for the 2009-10 school year.

Aid to local districts makes up about one-fourth of the state’s overall budget, which is now facing cutbacks.

>January 20, 2009
Contact: Bill Murray / (609) 292-5199
Senator Kevin J. O’Toole (R-40)
O’Toole: Davy on The Right Track

Unworkable, Expensive, Mandated Programs Must Be Eliminated

Senator Kevin O’Toole, a member of the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee, issued the following statement today regarding Education Commissioner Lucille Davy’s comments concerning mandated programs.

“Commissioner Davy’s Comments to the Press of Atlantic City are certainly welcome. She seems committed to identifying and eliminating unnecessary, expensive mandated education programs.

“These programs are certainly one of the primary drivers of local property taxes. Today’s economic environment demands that we implement budget savings wherever possible. I look forward to working with the commissioner and reviewing her recommendations.

“I urge Commissioner Davy to move quickly to implement these changes. However, we must be mindful that any program cuts dot not adversely affect the high quality of education in local school districts.”
Link to Post:

https://www.senatenj.com/index.php/otoole/otoole-davy-on-the-right-track/2089

>Dear Friends,
Last week, I introduced H.R. 470, The Economic Recovery and Middle-Class Tax Relief Act, an economic stimulus package designed to provide short-term stimulus, while encouraging long-term economic growth.

This legislation, developed in conjunction with the Republican Study Committee (RSC), focuses on broad, growth-oriented, permanent incentives for economic activity across all sectors and industries, with immediate application and sustained, long-term implications. Provisions center around three main themes: support for families through tax relief, economic relief for American businesses and entrepreneurs, and protection for future generations from a crushing debt burden.

The Economic Recovery and Middle-Class Tax Relief Act, with its emphasis on America’s small business and middle class, is a much-needed jumpstart to our nation’s economy. This bill is a commonsense approach to protecting and preserving American jobs. History has shown that the most effective way to reinvigorate the economy and spur economic growth is to ensure that job creators face a lower tax and regulatory burden. Congress and the Administration must pass an economic package that actually works to stimulate our economy long-term. Protecting and securing America’s jobs is the taxpayer friendly approach to accomplishing this.

We must liberate Americans from their overwhelming tax burden in order to empower individual taxpayers and keep more money in the wallets of American families. We must cease the excessive federal spending that continues to bloat our national debt, and create opportunities for private initiatives to spur economic growth. And we must end the government interference in the marketplace that many experts say have helped create our current economic problems.

Provisions contained in The Economic Recovery and Middle-Class Tax Relief Act include:

• 5% across the board reduction to individual income tax rates
• Repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax for individuals
• No increase in capital gains and dividends tax rates for individuals
• Increase the child tax credit from $1,000 to $5,000, but it is not refundable
• Permanently repeal the 70.5 distribution requirement on IRAs
• Increase the tax deduction for student loans from $2,500 to $3,750 and increase income limits up to $75,000 for individuals and $150,000 for families with no phase out
• Increase the tax deduction for qualified higher education expenses from $4,000 to $6,000 and increase income limits up to $75,000 for individuals and $150,000 for families with no phase out
• Temporarily make all withdrawals from IRAs not subject to taxation or penalties for 2009
• Reduce the corporate income tax rate to 25%
• Reduce the alternative capital gains rate for corporations to 15%
• Index capital gains for inflation
• Repeal limitations on expensing allowance (Sec. 179) of depreciable business assets
• Make the R&D tax credit permanent
• Extend the two-year “carryback” period for net operating losses to seven years
• A one percent across the board cut to non-defense discretionary spending

I look forward to an open discussion with Members on both sides of the aisle about the ideas presented in this bill. I am confident that we can work together to find relief for Americans and bring an end to the economic crisis facing our country.

Sincerely,

Scott Garrett
Member of Congress