CALIFORNIA: State Chamber of Commerce gathering explore workforce development, regulation, corporate and individual taxes.The state’s transportation funding situation is so dire that transportation Commissioner Jamie Fox should start closing bridges to spur public concern and legislative action or at least that was one panelist’s opinion at a wide-ranging conference yesterday on New Jersey’s economic and business struggles.
The discussions at the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce’s first-of-its-kind summit in Atlantic City also focused on workforce development, regulation, and taxes. A panel of top legislators is scheduled to speak this morning before the summit concludes. The transportation panel provoked some of the most passionate comments, including the remark from John Donnadio, executive director of the New Jersey Association of Counties.
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The discussion was part of an ongoing debate over how to replenish the state’s $1.6 billion Transportation Trust Fund. It is expected to run out of money for new projects sometime in the next year, unless its funding source, the state gas tax, is raised or another source of revenue is identified.
Robert Briant, CEO of the Utility and Transportation Contractors Association of New Jersey, describes the TTF as “beyond broke” because it is taking in $905 million a year while the state has about $1.3 billion in annual transportation-related debt, requiring an annual infusion from the state’s general fund. Covering that debt fully would require at least an 8-cent increase in the gas tax, while the new $20 billion trans-Hudson rail tunnel Gov.
