Category: Testimony

Tax Credit Awards Should Benefit Communities, Not Just Developers and Landowners

Posted on by Peter Chen

Any changes that loosen requirements for developers and landowners when it comes to redevelopment tax credits should be carefully scrutinized, as stringent requirements are necessary to ensure that tax credit awards represent a true benefit to their communities rather than mere tax giveaways. It’s unclear why changes are necessary to Aspire given that the legislature amended the program last year and the EDA has just begun awarding credits based on the regulations updated to those legislative changes.

A few items of concern in the current bill:

  1. Removal of the three-bedroom apartment requirement: New Jersey rental housing remains scarce especially for affordable family units. The replacement of the three-bedroom requirement with a mere 5 percent increase in project cost for three-bedroom inclusion does not change the economic incentives for developers, who can obtain much more rent per square foot from non-family units. Requiring family housing should be part of affordable housing policy broadly.
  2. Use of credits for warehousing: Even with the addition of a $10 million environmental remediation requirement, warehousing should not be the focus of the Aspire program. As warehousing expands its footprint across the state, it’s unclear why warehouses need any incentives to build, even if substantial environmental remediation costs exist.
  3. Inclusion of parking in total square footage: The purpose of a transformative project is to improve communities with dramatic changes in residential or commercial space. New Jersey should not be subsidizing housing for cars at the expense of housing for people.
  4. Reduction in retail space: Reducing the requirement from 50,000 to 20,000 square feet of commercial space is a dramatic shift with no explanation. Again, defining “transformative” downwards is not clearly benefiting communities that have faced underinvestment for years.
  5. Redevelopment Bridge Program within EDA: Although a bridge financing program may be a good policy in order to assist in building the necessary finance stack for construction, NJPP has concerns about the EDA issuing loans and loan guarantees through the bridge program as well as the credits against which the loans are guaranteed. This creates a potential conflict.
  6. Carry-forward and transfer concerns: Extending the time window for redemption does increase the value of the credits, but each change in the time window for redemption also results in erosion of the predictability of credit claims. As seen in this year’s budget, tax credits from years earlier can come back to bite state revenue in a future year, making it more difficult to estimate revenues.

NJPP urges the committee to revisit and revise this legislation to address some of these concerns and also to pump the brakes on wholesale changes to the Aspire program this soon after previous changes.

Film Tax Credits Are a Bad Deal for New Jersey, With Few Benefits Coming Back to the State

Posted on by Peter Chen

Film tax credits have long been a bad deal for states, yielding pennies on the dollar while leaving Hollywood studios the lion’s share of the benefits. The current bill would loosen requirements on these credits even further, weakening the case of their supposed economic benefits to New Jersey.

One main concern is the treatment of Pennsylvania workers as New Jersey workers for the purposes of defining qualified production expenses. Why should the state be subsidizing workers from other states who pay income elsewhere? If a film production uses out-of-state labor, that’s certainly a choice they can make, but it’s unclear why New Jersey would allow companies to count those workers towards their economic costs accrued in-state.

Another is the rollover of Aspire and Emerge credits into the film tax credit program. Aspire and Emerge each have requirements on projects that limit credits to deserving programs that can serve to revitalize underinvested communities. This bill allows unused tax credits from Aspire and Emerge to simply be made available through this program to a wider range of potential claimants and raises the cap to $300 million. Given the long-term financial cost of tax credits on the state budget, the state should think twice before expanding access to tax credits without stringent requirements on ensuring benefits go to communities, not big corporations.

Given the dire economic straits the state budget finds itself in, it may be tempting to view the film tax credit program as free money, which can be doled out without appropriation and without budgetary cost. But this is purely an illusion; loosening requirements on tax credit programs means money going out the door with fewer benefits coming back to the state.

NJPP urges the committee to vote no on this legislation.

Prohibiting Reporting Medical Debt to Credit Reporting Agencies Would Help Protect New Jersey’s Most Vulnerable Residents from Financial Ruin

Posted on by Brittany Holom-Trundy

Good morning Chairman Freiman and members of the Committee. Thank you for this opportunity to provide my testimony on A3861, the Louisa Carman Medical Debt Relief Act. My name is Dr. Brittany Holom-Trundy, and I am a senior policy analyst at New Jersey Policy Perspective (NJPP). NJPP is a non-partisan, non-profit research institution that focuses on policies that can improve the lives of low- and middle-income people, strengthen our state’s economy, and enhance the quality of life in New Jersey.

NJPP supports A3861, which would prohibit the reporting of medical debt to credit reporting agencies and ensure that patients are protected from financial ruin just from seeking medical care.

These actions are crucial for the well-being of the state’s families, especially those with lower incomes. Health care researchers have long recognized that poverty and the resulting inaccessibility of health care in and of itself can lead to a greater likelihood for medical emergencies and chronic illnesses because residents with low incomes or who lack insurance do not have access to needed resources and may avoid preventative medical care due to costs and time restrictions.[i] This means that those with the least means to pay for medical emergencies are also the most likely to face them — and with medical emergencies come extremely high bills, requiring money beyond what the individuals and families can afford. This worsens health inequities that we already see in the state; for example, we know that residents of color are twice as likely to have medical debt in collections.[ii]

Even for those with insurance coverage and up-to-date preventive medical care, unexpected medical emergencies happen and affordability remains a critical issue.[iii] People often have to go to the nearest emergency room, regardless of their coverage, and face bills of thousands of dollars simply because they were in an accident or woke up one morning with a failing organ.

It is important to note that this bill does not necessarily address the root issue of high costs in our health care system nor does it eliminate medical debt altogether. However, this will at least provide families with the knowledge that medical debt will not pervade their lives and create obstacles to other basic necessities. This bill is crucial to addressing calamities and the ways that our expensive health care system currently cripples families for life. In prohibiting the reporting of debt to credit reporting agencies and ensuring that patients are protected, we can bring more humanity to our health care system and promise residents that medical debt will not control their future.

We hope that the Committee will agree and release this bill with the adoption of the proposed amendments suggested by the groups here today.

Thank you for your time.

End Notes

[i] U.S. Census Bureau, Most Vulnerable More Likely to Depend on Emergency Rooms for Preventable Care, 2022. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/01/who-makes-more-preventable-visits-to-emergency-rooms.html

[ii] Urban Institute, Debt in America. https://apps.urban.org/features/debt-interactive-map/?type=medical&variable=medcoll&state=34.

[iii] Commonwealth Fund, The Cost of Not Getting Care: Income Disparities in the Affordability of Health Services Across High-Income Countries, 2023. https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/surveys/2023/nov/cost-not-getting-care-income-disparities-affordability-health

Lengthy Sentences Do Not Serve as Deterrents, Address Root Causes, or Reduce Crime

Posted on by Marleina Ubel

Good morning, Chairman Stack and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today.

I’m Marleina Ubel, a senior policy analyst at New Jersey Policy Perspective (NJPP), a nonpartisan think tank focused on advancing economic, social, and racial justice for New Jersey residents.

First, I want to acknowledge that the work you do is challenging. You are pulled in different directions by people who feel passionately about these issues, and I believe that you are all trying to do what you feel is right. When I was younger, I had a mentor tell me, “doing the right thing is easy. It is knowing what the right thing is that is the hard part.” So, today I will share some information to help determine the right thing.

As written, S3006 will essentially turn trespassing into 2nd degree burglary subject to NERA. What that means is, this legislature is asking that someone who enters any place with an accommodation for sleeping without permission, whether or not the place is empty, be sent to prison for 5 to 10 years, have to serve at least 85% of their sentence before they are even eligible for parole, and have an additional mandatory period of supervision tacked on. Make no mistake, this will create a new mandatory minimum, even if those words do not appear in the bill. It can also make that person essentially ineligible for other programming, such as diversion programs for juveniles or recovery court for individuals who use drugs.

Research shows that property crime like burglary is tied to economic circumstances. So, this bill will target some of the most vulnerable New Jerseyans, such as unhoused people, and make them ineligible for services that might actually reduce the chances for reoffense. Thus, this bill will have unintended consequences and increase the chances that people reoffend by making support services — the kind that actually address root causes of crime — out of reach. This bill will also adversely affect juveniles, because a 2nd degree NERA offense makes it more likely that they are tried in an adult court even if their record is clean.

Lengthy sentences do not serve as deterrents or address root causes, and they do not reduce crime. In fact, research has shown that increased and continuous exposure to the penal system increases recidivism and exacerbates the circumstances that lead to criminal activity in the first place, things like, employment and educational opportunities, economic stability, relationships with community members and family – all of these things are ripped away from people when they are sent to prison. In this case, ripped away from someone who is likely vulnerable, nonviolent, or unhoused for what could be decade.

Bills like this are how we got to where we are today, known across the world as the incarceration nation. Please do the right thing and vote no on this bill.

Thank you and happy to take any questions.

Dedicating Corporate Transit Fee Revenue to NJ Transit Makes Fiscal and Policy Sense

Posted on by Peter Chen

The Corporate Transit Fee is a critical investment for our state — making Big Business pay back some of its record profits in support of the New Jersey infrastructure that generated those profits in the first place.

But it also represents an important bulwark against the tide of eroding corporate taxes that have affected both federal and state governments. An increasingly concentrated group of the most profitable corporations now soak up an enormous percentage of the world’s economic production, with tax cuts and loopholes for corporations to reduce already-shrinking tax liability. If states are unable to pull back wealth from these sophisticated corporate actors, they will find themselves with less revenue to fund critical investments like schools, public health, and infrastructure, while placing more burden on in-state residents and institutions.

As NJPP noted in its recent report, this fee would affect less than 1% of New Jersey business tax filers, almost all of whom are located out of state. Rather than harming New Jersey businesses, this would help level the playing field between small and midsize businesses and corporate behemoths, ensuring that a business collecting $100,000 in profits does not pay the same tax rate as a business collecting $100,000,000.

The prior corporate surtax allowed New Jersey’s tax collections to grow proportionally with the record profits generated by businesses post-2020, while other states lagged behind. The Corporate Transit Fee will hopefully allow this trend to continue.

Dedicating the fee to NJ Transit makes both fiscal and policy sense. As you are well aware, NJ Transit faces an $850 million budget deficit starting in fiscal year 2026. Without the CTF, the trains and buses that form the backbone of New Jersey’s economic success would face immediate cutbacks and cancellations, with shuttered stations and riders left stranded. The most profitable businesses should pay their fair share for infrastructure that helps them generate their profits. NJ Transit needs sustainable dedicated funding to preserve its operations for years to come.

Social Equity Excise Fee Revenue Should Support Those Harmed Most by Cannabis Prohibition

Posted on by Marleina Ubel

Good morning, Chairwoman Houenou, Vice-Chairman Delgado, and Commissioners of the Cannabis Regulatory Commission (CRC). Thank you for this opportunity to share my testimony.

I’m Marleina Ubel, a senior policy analyst at New Jersey Policy Perspective (NJPP), a nonpartisan think tank dedicated to championing economic, social, and racial justice for New Jersey residents.

The Social Equity Excise Fee (SEEF) is more than just a financial measure; it’s a vital step towards rectifying the injustices inflicted by the War on Drugs. We’ve seen families torn apart, economic opportunities stifled, and communities of color disproportionately affected by draconian drug policies. The revenue generated by this fee should, under no circumstances, be given to law enforcement agencies, which were the very entities that caused the most harm enforcing cannabis prohibition. Law enforcement already receives the lion’s share of public safety funding even though other social service professions, such as public and mental health professionals, school counselors, and social workers are just as important to public safety.

SEEF revenue must be distributed back not just to municipal governments, but to promoting stronger, safer, and more resilient communities, recognizing substance use as a matter of public health. Crucially, those directly impacted by the War on Drugs must have a voice in how these funds are utilized. We must ensure more legitimate stakeholding.

NJPP advocates for a diverse range of uses for SEEF revenue, from community programs to harm reduction services, acknowledging the successes of states like Colorado, where similar funds have bolstered education, mental health services, and homelessness prevention.

I want to specifically highlight harm reduction services because although the budget is expected to generously fund the programming in Fiscal Year 2025, those funds are a result of the opioid settlement and to maintain this level of funding in the future, the state will need a sustainable revenue stream.

Finally, given the importance of this fee, the CRC should move to increase it — setting SEEF at the maximum allowed by statute, which would still keep New Jersey among some of the lowest taxes on cannabis in the country. However, let’s be clear: equitable distribution is paramount. Municipalities must prioritize racial justice and reparations for those most affected by the War on Drugs. Anything less would betray the very essence of the SEEF’s purpose.

Thank you for your attention.

The Open Public Records Act (OPRA) Ensures Government Transparency and Accountability

Posted on by Alex Ambrose

Good Morning Chair Karabinchak and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today.

The bill as currently drafted would gut the public’s access to records that are generated by public dollars by public employees. Rather than support the public’s access, this bill instead erects more obstacles to public access and removes protections that make it possible to combat erroneous denials.

Government records are generated by and for the public. To ensure transparency and accountability for government activity, the public can and should be able to access those records. The entire purpose of the Open Public Records Act (OPRA) is to expand and improve public access.

As a research organization, NJPP frequently puts together its reports using public data that it requests from public agencies. Public health data, budget data, and meeting minutes are critical components of understanding how government priorities are set. And as agencies put less and less information on public websites, OPRA has become one of the only ways to obtain this information. As an example, NJPP had to use OPRA to request documents such as:

  • Preschool attendance data
  • NJ Transit budgets and meeting minutes
  • Local law enforcement budgets

 

Already many requests are subject to unexplained delays and erroneous denials. This bill would create even more red tape for requestors and limit access to specialized researchers or moneyed special interests, rather than members of the general public.

Below are just a selection of the different ways in which this bill would harm transparency and the right of the public to understand what it is that government officials and employees are doing with public money and public trust, but at this juncture, I simply urge the committee to vote NO on this bill. No set of amendments can improve what is a tear-down of the entire concept of open records.

Almost every provision in the bill harms public transparency:

  • Expands exemptions:
    • Exempts whole categories of public records: Because of obscure data-keeping policies, members of the public frequently cannot request data because they don’t know what data exists. What email communication occurred, when calls took place, what date a PDF was created – these are critical data for understanding how government decisions are made, especially as more records become electronic.
    • Creates catch-all exemption for anything that may or might lead to disclosure of personal information or harassment: Placing new exemptions for information that “might reasonably lead” to disclosure of personal information and information that the agency “has reason to believe . . . may result in harassment, unwanted solicitation, identity theft, or opportunities for other criminal acts” allows enormous discretion to public agencies to deny requests behind the veneer of protecting the public. This exception is wide enough that it can be used for a denial of almost any information even tangentially related to a specific person or group of people.
    • Creates unbalanced “task force” to study police records: Though special circumstances do often apply to law enforcement records, they are still government records preserved on behalf of the public. Given the strong public interest in accountable policing, any task force should have a clear charge focused on that accountability and its composition should reflect that goal.
  • Increases incentives for non-compliance/denial:
    • Makes fee-shifting discretionary rather than mandatory: The opaque and slow Government Records Council process means that the only effective way to resolve OPRA denial complaints is through the courts. Because these cases do not frequently result in money damages, mandatory fee-shifting is the only incentive for lawyers to take on these cases for citizens.
    • Establishes personal immunity for willful violations: As has been seen in other areas of public employee misconduct, the public ends up paying the bill for the costs of violations and litigation. Eliminating personal immunity for willful violations of OPRA will create more incentive not to comply, because the agency, not the custodian, will be on the hook.
  • Expands red tape
    • Requires correspondence to be on a “specific subject matter” and “discrete and limited time period” from a specific person: Say that a member of the public is interested in finding out about why a municipality made a decision to sell a parcel. The member requests emails pertaining to the sale of the parcel, but does not necessarily know when those emails would have been sent, or even the identity of the relevant employees who made the decision.
    • Allows data to be provided in any format at the discretion of the custodian, even if highly inconvenient: Many records remain only accessible in hard copy. This format is highly inconvenient especially when records are voluminous. Providing records in the requested format when possible aids public access.
    • Extends time period for response from 7 to 14 days “as appropriate”: The bill de facto eliminates seven-day requirements by adding “14 days as appropriate” in a variety of circumstances. No doubt custodians will find it appropriate to use the 14 days rather than seven.
    • Extends time period to review for Daniel’s Law compliance: A perfectly reasonable concern for compliance with state confidentiality law should not necessarily require a 14-day review period to buy additional delays in compliance.
    • Extends time period based on when a request is “received” rather than sent: This creates an incentive to ignore requests or not to open them in a timely manner.
    • Mandates use of the OPRA request form: This simply provides another way to deny an otherwise-legitimate request for not going through the proper portal, especially when many state residents still lack internet access or a vehicle.
    • Limits “commercial” requests: The definition of “commercial” is so broad that it likely includes legitimate purposes. A wide range of businesses use public records. A bill targeting dubious or predatory commercial use requires much more tailoring to ensure that members of the public are not excluded from access.

 

As the members of this committee can no doubt see, this bill represents a wholesale rewriting of the OPRA statute to hide more and more government business behind closed doors. Members of all political parties and backgrounds should see the risks of hiding accountability for government activity.

The FY2025 Budget Should Use Corporate Tax Revenue to Support Public Investments

Posted on by Peter Chen

Good Morning Chair Pintor Marin and members of the Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today on the fiscal year 2025 budget.

The state budget can and should support broad public investments that benefit all New Jerseyans, especially low- and moderate-income residents, while ensuring that sufficient revenue is raised from the wealthy and powerful with the highest ability to pay. These values live in the Governor’s proposal to provide long-needed dedicated funding to NJ Transit with a new fee on corporations earning over $10 million in profits.

Big corporations like Amazon and Walmart have soaked up record profits off of higher prices, while directing those profits to executives and shareholders. By contrast, NJ Transit, the cornerstone of New Jersey’s economic strength, faces a looming $1 billion shortfall in FY 2026 and has already proposed a double-digit fare hike on residents who can hardly afford it.

Yet even the Governor’s proposal is not enough to fill in the revenue the state needs to continue its strong investments in communities. The governor’s proposal would also have the state spending more than it collects in tax revenue for yet another year, further draining the surplus rather than preparing for the next economic downturn.

This is not the time to draw down the surplus: Neither the country nor state are in recession, with record stock prices and low unemployment. Instead, the state needs more revenues – starting with a full reinstatement of the corporation business tax surtax.

The state has seen austerity budgets before, with years of structural deficits and one-shot funding gimmicks that resulted in cuts to essential programs and an empty rainy day fund. There is simply no reason to return to the bad old days when the state is leaving money on the table.

NJPP continues to support a broad range of budgetary improvements that would help New Jerseyans afford the rising cost of living, costs which are especially high for low- and moderate-income households, which are detailed in the attached publication. These include:

  • Raising the benefit amount for Work First New Jersey,
  • Expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit,
  • Eliminating the cost of communications for people incarcerated and their families.

 

However, absent new revenues, this year’s budget will remain one of defending programs from cuts, rather than a broader vision for how the state can support economic opportunity for all. This scenario is exactly the one a state with the wealth of New Jersey should be avoiding – pitting program against program, department against department. Instead, broadening and deepening the state’s revenue sources can expand the resources available to help every family and individual thrive.

There is one obvious revenue source: reinstating the full Corporation Business Tax surtax on all corporations with over $1 million in profits. There’s no reason to leave $200 million on the table. But beyond that, the state must look at additional progressive revenues such as stronger corporate tax policies to address tax avoidance, taxes on accumulated wealth, and broadening and modernizing the sales tax.

The Corporate Transit Fee is a step in the right direction and embodies exactly the kind of revenue New Jersey should be generating – asking the corporations and individuals who have seen their wealth soar since the pandemic to pay for the investments that the state needs.

Strong Pretrial Services Lead to a More Just Criminal Legal System

Posted on by Awinna Martinez

Good morning, Chairman Stack and Members of the Senate Judiciary:

My name is Awinna Martinez. I am the Policy Director of the New Jersey Policy Perspective, a nonpartisan think tank focused on state-level policies that advance economic, social, and racial justice. Thank you for having me here today.

Our stated mission at NJPP is to ensure that all of New Jersey’s residents enjoy lives of dignity, opportunity, and economic security. We know the criminal legal system has everlasting and harsh consequences on families and children, financial stability, pathways to education, the workforce, and the fabric of our communities. It is widely known that interactions with the criminal legal system disproportionately impact Black and brown communities.

Criminal legal system reform should not be taken lightly but driven by data and research to create policies that promote public safety while ensuring a fair and equitable system.

New Jersey’s 2017 Criminal Justice Reform (CJR) is a policy informed by long-standing research[i] that eliminating cash bail and reducing pretrial detention address racial disparities in our system without negatively impacting public safety. An early evaluation of the CJR found that arrests dropped significantly in the year following CJR implementation.[ii]  Seven years later, New Jersey has become a pretrial justice leader nationally for significantly decreasing the use of pretrial detention while maintaining the same or better crime rates.[iii]

More than 400,000 individuals are held pretrial across the country, with most unable to pay bail. It is significant that we can say that here in New Jersey, we are not contributing to this alarming trend. We have eliminated “the debtors’ prison” that makes up many other places nationwide.

I want to emphasize how important it is for the state to build on the success of our bail reform laws by investing in better support for justice-involved individuals rather than resorting to misguided rollbacks in response to political pressures. There is no evidence linking increases in crime to individuals on pretrial release.

Our communities are better served by policymakers who focus on strengthening our pretrial system. First, this means committing to a mission focused on treating pretrial services separately from all other stages of the criminal legal system process — pretrial is not probation, parole, or reentry. American jurisprudence presumes these individuals are innocent until the resolution of their case says otherwise. Adopting proposals to increase the number of people exposed to the harms of pretrial detention undercuts the work of this legislature and what the evidence tells us.

Pretrial’s key players (judges, defense attorneys, prosecutors, and pretrial staff) should operate under the same mission rather than relying on the harms and pressures imposed by pretrial detention. Ensuring the criminal legal system upholds the fundamental rights of a presumption of innocence and due process while delivering timely case resolutions is the way to achieve just, fair, and equitable outcomes.

Second, investing in pretrial services means allocating more funding statewide. In New Jersey, the quality of pretrial services should remain consistent across all counties, no matter where an individual’s criminal matter is situated. Consistency ensures everyone receives the necessary support to navigate their pretrial experience successfully. Compliance with conditions of release and success in the pretrial phase can be achieved through investments in resources in pretrial support systems and agencies that already have a touch point with defendants, such as the Office of the Public Defender and county-level pretrial services staff. Connection to these resources can address an individual’s housing, education, employment, and health care needs.

I want to close by sharing that before joining NJPP, I spent my career focused on criminal legal reform, focusing on diversion and alternatives to incarceration. For three years, I oversaw a pretrial services agency entirely staffed by case managers and social workers, whose main goals were to respond to individual needs and provide resources and programming when possible.

Drawing from personal experience, I witnessed firsthand the transformative impact of increased funding on staffing levels and providing supportive services that did not rely on a law enforcement approach. We had a compliance rate of almost 90%, even during the height of the pandemic, when operations had to move remotely. We attributed this success to the supportive services model that allowed us to use a wraparound human-centric approach. These investments enable pretrial services to offer individualized attention and comprehensive case management, addressing any underlying needs that could hinder an individual’s progress during the pretrial stage.

In New Jersey, we have seen our incarceration rate decrease significantly.[iv] This allows individuals to return home, support their families, maintain employment, and ensure some measure of stability while their case is being resolved. But we know there is more work to do. New Jersey continues to have the worst racial disparities in the country, where a Black adult is 12 times more likely to be incarcerated than a white adult. Any steps policymakers take in addressing our system should be to make it stronger–changes rooted in equity and fairness–not informed by what we think makes public safety work but instead by what we know.  It is critical to understand the data and research and balance this with understanding the harms that we know occur to individuals, families, and communities when we over-police and over-incarcerate.

Thank you.

[i] Schnake, Timothy R., Fundamentals of Bail: A Resource Guide for Pretrial Practitioners and a Framework for American Pretrial Reform, September 2014, Chapter 4: Pretrial Research, pp 64-85, http://static.nicic.gov.s3.amazonaws.com/Library/028360.pdf

[ii] Anderson et.al, Evaluation of Pretrial Justice System Reforms that Use the Public Safety Assessment: Effects of New Jersey’s Criminal Justice Reform, November 2019, https://www.mdrc.org/sites/default/files/PSA_New_Jersey_Report_%231.pdf

[iii] Staudt, Sarah, Releasing people pretrial doesn’t harm public safety, Prison Policy Initiative, July 6, 2023, https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2023/07/06/bail-reform/

[iv] Hernandez, Amanda, Releasing suspects pretrial doesn’t lead to higher crime rates, experts say, February 22, 2024, https://newjerseymonitor.com/2024/02/22/releasing-suspects-pretrial-doesnt-lead-to-higher-crime-rates-experts-say/

Fare Hikes Will Not Fix NJ Transit’s Structural Financial Issues

Posted on by Alex Ambrose

Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Alex Ambrose and I’m a policy analyst with New Jersey Policy Perspective. I am here today to ask you to stand up for riders and refuse to raise fares or cut service, both of which will have devastating financial consequences for commuters and our state’s lowest-income families.

NJ Transit is the backbone of our economy. Millions of New Jerseyans rely on it to get to their jobs, to school, to run errands, and much more. This fare hike, however, is not the solution. We need to be incentivizing more people to take transit in order to make the state safer and to meet our statutory goals for emissions reductions.

It is no secret that NJ Transit is still suffering under budget cuts made years ago. But imposing a double-digit fare hike at the last minute is a band aid solution to a structural problem. It’s the equivalent of sticking our finger in the dam – it may stem the leak for now, but soon we’re going to have to fix the dam itself. That means lawmakers finding the political will to finally identify a sufficient funding source for NJ Transit, ending our reign as one of the biggest transit agencies in the country without dedicated funding in statute.

My recommendations for NJ Transit:

  1. Refuse fare hikes AND service cuts until the state agrees to increase the state subsidy. NJ Transit is a public service that should not have to subsist on its own customer-generated revenue. To close a fiscal gap on the backs of riders just weeks after lawmakers gave the wealthiest corporations in the country a major tax cut is the height of inequity. Increasing the subsidy to cover this year’s gap will still not even come close to how much the state invested in FY 2020 and 2021.
  2. Offer a virtual option for the fare hike public hearing. This would send a message to people who are not able to attend in-person meetings that their feedback is just as valuable as those who are able to attend.
  3. Reverse the proposals to get rid of FlexPass and to impose a 30-day expiration on one-way tickets. NJ Transit has not shown sufficient evidence that this proposal will make a substantial difference in its budget, but this will create huge financial challenges for everyday working class New Jerseyans.
  4. Commit to holding annual hearings on any future increase in perpetuity. Whether or not it is legal should not be the question–it is simply the right thing to do to ensure the people most affected by this proposal have their voices heard.

Finally, we call on legislators and Gov Murphy to reinstate the Corporate Business Tax (CBT) surcharge to create a dedicated funding source for NJ Transit. This is a modest tax on only the top 2% of corporations that operate in New Jersey, like Amazon and Walmart. New York MTA was able to avoid drastic service cuts and fare hikes by raising taxes on big businesses, so there is no reason we cannot do the same.

We keep hearing Governor Murphy say that New Jersey is more affordable than ever. We ask, affordable for who? Thank you.

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