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funding for nj business b provided by new jersey chamber of commerce working to keep new jersey in business online at njchamber.com cgi a global i.t and business consulting services firm we have been helping governments and private sector clients in new jersey with their evolving technology needs for 30 years learn more about our services at cgi.com and ibew local 102 proudly serving new jersey's business community since 1900 local 102 lighting the path leading the way visit ibew102.org this week on nj business feet budget breakdown we talk to the state treasurer and industry leaders about governor murphy's financial roadmap for the next fiscal year plus it's a done deal finally we look toward the future as recreational marijuana becomes legal in new jersey and we're putting the unemployment crisis in focus from a broken benefit claim system to the efforts to retrain millions of workers for an ever-changing job market that's straight ahead on nj business beat [Music] this is nj business beat with rhonda schaffler hello i'm rhonda schaffler thanks for joining us on nj business beat if you're watching on youtube make sure you subscribe to our nj spotlight news youtube channel to get alerted when we post new episodes and clips this week governor murphy unwrapped his budget proposal for the next fiscal year and in this election year it had a little something for everyone the 44.8 billion dollar plan includes no tax increases and tax relief in the form of direct payments of up to five hundred dollars to 760 000 residents the state will make its first full public worker pension contribution in more than two decades there's more money for health care and education as well as some relief for small businesses the murphy administration is able to increase spending in the next fiscal year because revenues ended up coming in stronger than expected and the state borrowed more than four billion dollars last fall as the economy was under pressure from the coven 19 pandemic i sat down with state treasurer elizabeth marimoyo to hear more about the administration's decisions on borrowing and spending we want to dig into the budget a little bit with you let's start with the fact this nearly 45 billion dollar budget includes an anticipated surplus of nearly 5 billion part of which will be spent down in the new fiscal year under the proposal but it bakes the question did the state really need to borrow more than four billion dollars then well you know when we went into this pandemic back last spring um early spring we did revenue forecasting that placed us i think in may our our revenue update we showed declines of 9.9 billion dollars when we did our first round of estimates based on what we were seeing in the economy and we are our revenues had tanked in the spring you you know the percentages sales tax gross income income tax realty transfer fees everything had declined drastically uh in the first wave of the pandemic moody's had thought that we could be seeing declines as bad as 13 billion dollars we we ended up at about 9 billion but we started adjusting that as we went through the pandemic we lowered that number as we saw what the effects were coming out of the first surge you know we started to build up sales tax it turned out gross income tax wasn't hurt as badly as we thought and we continued to alter that number through the year until our final recertification in late october when we went to borrow the emergency geo bonds but it turned out the economic effects of the second surge did not mirror the economic effects of the first surge we did not see our revenues plummet like we did in the first surge so this is our next opportunity the governor's budget message every year is the the opportunity for us to update our revenue numbers so we are adjusting them now as a result of having learned from experience what the effect of that second surge was economically and and there are a number of reasons i can go into for why it didn't affect us as much when we look at the budget there are property tax relief programs that have been maintained there's a new direct payment of up to five hundred dollars for some residents governor murphy saying yesterday his budgets have delivered the lowest year-over-year increases in property taxes on record but i must ask these are still increases we are not lowering property taxes so why don't we see even more in terms of tax relief especially given the revenue and uh surplus situation well i mean there is a lot of tax relief in this bill and um it's 1.25 billion in property tax relief through homestead rebates senior freeze um uh and other programs that we have had in place as you mentioned we also have the middle class tax rebate that is budgeted in this that was part of the millionaires tax agreement last year and that will be up to 500 um uh per taxpayer we're also expanding tax relief under the earned income tax credit this year we're proposing taking the age cap off so that people older than age 64 can also take advantage of the earned income tax credit and we're estimating 60 000 more new jerseyans will be able to take advantage of that one of the big headlines was the 6.4 billion dollar plan pension payment the head of the chamber of commerce tom bracken actually suggested that that was too much funding and some of that money should go to help businesses how do you respond to that um as i've said in earlier discussions that pension payment has has been an albatross around the necks of previous budgets for decades and with all due respect i i have to say that you know the last time it was paid 100 percent was back in 1996 the payment at that time was 235 million dollars million with an m we are now paying 6.4 billion because people made the decision not to pay the pension payment or decrease what we should have been paying for the pension payment if we had continued from 1996 to pay 100 percent of the adc for the pension payment through to the fy 21 budget we would have been paying 750 million dollars this year in fy 21 for 100 payment um so billions and billions of dollars have been lost because previous administrations have not made the full pension payment um this will save us by taking we're doing it a year early um along the the uh the payment plan so doing it a year early reaching 100 will save us over 800 million dollars over the next 30 years state treasurer elizabeth good to talk to you again thanks for your time good talking to you rhonda thanks take care so how's the budget going over in new jersey's business community we spoke with tom bracken of the new jersey chamber of commerce and a member of the njpbs board of trustees what's lacking in the budget um you know we have to to supercharge our economy uh first of all we have to make sure that the business community has adequate funding to be able to uh open their doors rehire people get inventory that working capital is vital and that has not been addressed uh really adequately since the beginning of the pandemic the combination of vaccinations a regional a plan to open the economy having adequate working capital all that needs to be in place for us to have a guide to get to recovery and the beginning of recovery will hopefully be the beginning of supercharging and i think there's enough pent-up demand that once we get all those factors in place we could have a very vibrant reopening of the economy tom do you think perhaps some of the resources were diverted away from programs for businesses with the expectation that there would be more federal money coming through likely to help small businesses well in the proposed stimulus package that's floating in washington right now there is to my knowledge no additional ppp money for the business community it's money for the states it's money for schools it's money for child care it's money for the unemployed and and stimulus money for uh the general public so to my knowledge there's nothing pending in the new stimulus package that's really going to help the business community but you also have to remember that there's still a ppp plan outstanding right now of 284 billion dollars and i believe only about 50 percent of that has been allocated you have some criticism over the planned uh payment into the pension fund tell us a little bit about why you think it's a very big step and perhaps a slightly unnecessary step at this time i wouldn't call what i'm saying criticism because we do need to fund the pension and we do need to make adequate payments but the pension is a very very big problem and a a payment even at 100 percent like the governor's proposing is not going to solve our pension problem and is not really going to help the long-term negative uh cloud hanging over our pension issue so the monies that he has allocated for that could be used to help with more immediate problems the most immediate problem we have facing our state right now is an economic crisis what will the business community fight for to have included in the final budget there's a lot of positive things and i think in those cases it'll be just funding of fighting for the right amount of dollars but to me the the biggest issue is the reprioritization to to really uh accommodate what the governor said last week which is to have a funding plan available to supercharge our economy that to me is key and that's going to be my number one focus tom bracken good to talk to you again thank you thank you rhonda the budget wasn't the only big news this week governor murphy finally signed bills legalizing adult use marijuana paving the way for a whole new industry the bills legalize the recreational market in new jersey decriminalized possession of up to six ounces and established penalties for people under age 21. legislative leaders like senator nick scottari and advocates including bill caruso are already envisioning the next steps for the industry we have dispensaries that are open for medical purposes i'm hopeful that they've gotten the signal that they should be producing mass quantities so they can open to the adult use market as soon as possible if they have enough product that they can certify and then after that obviously new license holders and a whole new marketplace taking an industry that obviously already exists in the black market and trying to move it into a regulated market i sense that there will be a market here in a craft cannabis space the little guy's going to have an opportunity um that homegrown flavor is going to have an opportunity and i think you're going to see that type of development occur now once this regulation takes shape but amid the excitement the new jersey business and industry association is worried about workplace safety it used to be that companies could require their employees to take drug tests but the new law requires companies to take another step and that weakens workplace protections according to ray cantor vice president of government affairs for the njbia now you can no longer rely on those drug tests solely as the means to um protect your workplace from having a an impaired employee what you have to do now is use a physical examination from a designated expert in order to make that determination and that makes these workplaces a lot less safe the njbia is looking to work with the legislature to try to amend the law in newark this week four of the city's female leaders explored how the state's largest city will rebound after the covet 19 pandemic one of those leaders entrepreneur adena bio is doing her part opening up a new restaurant in newark just this week but as a minority business owner she told me it has not been an easy journey we've seen on the state level there's been some attempt to offer more fundraising on the federal level the ppp loan program is changing to hopefully allow minority business owners a better shot at getting money why does this continue to be an issue that getting financing and getting capital is so difficult i've been in business for 15 years i run successful businesses i still have anxiety when i go to a traditional bank to finance me because when i walk in there i walk in there in a deficit they were not built for my success if you look at the diversity in those banks and the people making those decisions they're not reflective of what i look like so when i walk in the bank and i say i need a loan sometimes it's probably the first time to probably see someone that run that's me a minority woman that one that run a multi-million dollar business do we need to change perhaps who works in some of these financial institutions so there's more diversity in the workforce so that when somebody like you walks into a bank there's a whole bunch of use in the bank already or is it something about uh lending practices that are just flat out wrong in your opinion i think it's a it's the first part of it diversity matters there is no way if ends about it diversity matter we have to do something in how these banks deal with the poor and the marginalized so i do most of my businesses in real in communities that lack investments right i do businesses in irvington newark paterson these are communities that banks have essentially turned their back on right if you have people from that community that reflect that community better decisions get made can be made but what you have is business as usual you have often time the brands the local branch may be diverse but when you put your application through the destiny on may be someone that never heard of the name adina before right and that where the problem lies we have to diversify the decision-making process in banking and that's gender and race adina i so appreciate you sharing your story and i'm so happy you have succeeded despite some of those odds thrown at you thank you so much oh you're welcome thanks for having me when a new business opens that creates new jobs and we need as many jobs as we can get these days so what's the murphy administration doing to help get displaced workers back on their feet that's in focus for us this week the governor's new budget does set aside 22 million dollars for workforce development and another six million dollars for workplace training programs that target low-income and under-served workers i spoke with glenn bess the director of career works for the newark alliance about the need to re-skill workers for the jobs that are available right now we have an enormous challenge we have thousands upon thousands of new jersey residents who need work some will have to be retrained to get new jobs how has this coveted pandemic affected the work you do on job training well some of the impact has been both seen and some unseen obviously certain sectors of the of the workforce has decreased significantly especially in the hospitality and tourism sector um what we've tried to do is to align and pivot some of the displaced workers into sectors that have a increased demand such as the health care sector also sectors such as the logistics transportation and distribution of sector which has continued to expand even in the midst of the pandemic so what we try to do as an organization is to to assist stand up those those types of programs and initiatives that could support uh employment for those individuals and many individuals who have been in other sectors that have been either displaced businesses have contracted um we have shifted them over to other other industry sectors and re either upskilled them or retrained them in other in other areas unfortunately in this economic downturn as we've seen before some of new jersey's most vulnerable residents really feeling the impact some lower income workers for example how do we make sure that some of the workers who might not have the education or skill level really aren't passed over as the economy begins to recover beyond your program what do we need to do as a state in terms of workplace training there certainly has to be much more investment in both the the ngos and community-based and faith-based organizations who basically provide supportive services to job seekers to the the least of those in our communities um there are many populations who have been impacted but those most vulnerable populations have been you know decimated in this during this pandemic they typically their support um echanisms have been those organizations that go beyond just the state um because the state needs those allies those allied organizations that help help them in supporting that during the times of crisis everything from uh homelessness to to illiteracy to food and shelter um all of those things impact how we work with with these populations and trying to get them into the employment sector because those things impact whether or not one they can be employed and then they can be retained and we've seen that from during this pandemic where there's been an increased pull and demand on those organizations to support these displaced workers to support individuals who have been largely left out of being able to recover quickly so i think that's going to be very important moving forward as well as private partners partners in the private sector as well can the private sector do more i i think they can i think they can um we you know investing in both training um investing in in programs that can support um their their uh industry sectors um training is always important and but making sure that those individuals have the the mechanisms to to to make them um you know to keep them engaged and retained at the same time that's that's very important glenn thank you so much for your time you're welcome the governor's budget also includes increased funding to continue upgrading the system that processes unemployment claims and to improve claimant communications there's also a bill kicking around the legislature to use federal monies to modernize the state system we have all heard horror stories from frustrated residents who have had trouble getting their claims processed and receiving their benefits atlantic county resident mark zarek has been out of work for over a year he shared his story mark thanks so much for talking to me and sharing your story you are one of the many residents who has had to go on unemployment and it has not been easy share with me if you will some of the frustrations you've had with your unemployment insurance okay great yeah so briefly um i opened my claim a year ago pre-pandemic in december of 2019 everything went uh flawlessly for the first 11 months or so i went into my extensions my 13 week extension my 20 week extension and then a couple weeks into my 20-week extension i attained my one-year anniversary uh of my claim being filed at that point i was um told that i had to speak to a claims agent and my weekly uh benefit didn't come through that was in early december so uh i i called it was hard to get through it took me a couple days but i got a person on the phone they said hey a claims agent has to fix this it's going to take four weeks you know if you don't hear anything in four weeks call us back but but you'll receive something in the mail or an email well i waited the four weeks uh although it was hard just to sit there um and then when i re-contacted them in early january they said well it's gonna be eight more weeks and i said what what happened to the four weeks you know and they said it never was four weeks so at that point i realized that the person i was talking to was not a claims agent they were a service representative someone hired just to answer the phone who really didn't know anything about unemployment and i called many times after that in january and february and got through to a service representative but again they were just people who were hired to uh placate people calling in so they could talk to somebody they couldn't do anything so at this point it's about 10 weeks going on 11 weeks i i never received any communication from the division and i know i'm really up in the air about it my question is will my claim be reviewed and how will i know you know when that's going to happen on a scale of 1-10 where's your frustration level right now well of course it's all way up there because uh just not having any communication is the worst uh part of it you know we we need some kind of direction we need to be told hey when you get to your anniversary this is you're going to get kicked off but this is what we're going to do to fix it and as i said in in march it's going to be multiplied many times mark i want to thank you for not only sharing your story but alerting others that there could be some trouble ahead i really appreciate it and i i hope you're back to work very soon yeah thanks a lot appreciate it ronnie the state labor department says it is required to review all unemployment claims 52 weeks after they are filed next month thousands of residents will be subject to what's called the benefit year review the labor department says if this is happening to you it is important not to try to open a new claim because that will result in a suspension of benefits i want to thank you for watching nj business beat are you a business interested in sponsoring nj business beat contact steve priolo at the email or phone number you see at the bottom of your screen i'm rhonda schaffler we'll see you next week funding for nj business beat provided by new jersey chamber of commerce working to keep new jersey in business online at njchamber.com cgi a global i.t and business consulting services firm we have been helping governments and private sector clients in new jersey with their evolving technology needs for 30 years learn more about our services at cgi.com and ibew local 102 proudly serving new jersey's business community since 1900 local 102 lighting the path leading the way visit ibew102.org [Music] you