(upbeat music) - From NJ PBS Studios, this is NJ Spotlight News with Brianna Vannozzi.

- Good evening and thanks for joining us tonight.

I'm Briana Vannozzi.

Coming up in the broadcast, World Cup costs.

From ticket prices to transit, will the games be an economic boon or bust for the state?

Joanna Gaggis talks with GOP State Senator Mike Testa about his concerns.

Plus, I speak with 9/11 responder and advocate John Feal about the continued fight in Washington to fund care for those suffering from 9/11-related illnesses 25 years later.

And a look at how federal cuts are creating extra challenges for New Jersey's state budget.

First though, let's get a check on the top headlines from Joanna Gaggis.

Jo.

Thanks, Brie.

Earlier today, Governor Mikie Sherrill took action on a campaign issue she promised to reform as governor, affordable housing.

>> Sherrill signed an executive order, what she calls a whole of government approach to increase access and affordability for residents who need housing.

That includes a range of housing types from mixed income rentals to homes for sale.

Now, the first order of business, within 45 days, her Her administration will create the housing governing counsel.

That will be chaired by Sherrill's Chief Operating Officer, Kelly Doucette, and will bring together several agencies and departments.

Within 60 days, those agencies will submit a report detailing where the state can increase housing production and what state properties could be available for that development.

They'll also look at efficiency with recommendations to cut red tape and regulation.

The council will then have until September to develop a plan that will include coordinating funding and financing for housing development projects.

The timing of their recommendations will coincide with Governor Sherrill's housing conference in Atlantic City at the end of September.

The suspect in the shooting incident at this weekend's White House Correspondents Association dinner has been charged on three counts.

One count of attempting to assassinate the president.

Two counts of federal gun crimes.

The gunman charged a security checkpoint on Saturday at the Washington Hilton Hotel.

According to the shooter's writings that were reportedly shared with his family he was targeting President Trump and administration officials.

The incident has drawn strong reaction from lawmakers in New Jersey.

Governor Sherrill saying in a statement she's thankful the president is safe and quote plain and simple political violence should not be the answer in a democracy.

New Jersey GOP chair Christine Hanlon credited the swift response of law enforcement and Secret Service in a statement saying their quote professionalism ensured the safety of the president.

First Lady cabinet and all the attendees.

She's urging that we all resolve our differences peacefully.

Back to you Brie.

Coming up backlash grows over steep World Cup transit prices to MetLife Stadium.

We talked to Republican Senator Mike Testa about the bipartisan demand for answers on whether taxpayers could be on the hook.

That's next funding for NJ Spotlight News provided by the members of the New Jersey Education Association and RWJBarnabas help learn more at RWJBH.org.

The controversy over the cost of train tickets for the FIFA World Games continued to simmer over the weekend.

A group of lawmakers from New Jersey and New York wrote a letter to FIFA President Gianni Infantino demanding that his organization subsidize the cost of transporting guests to and from the games.

Right now those train ticket prices stand at one hundred fifty dollars for a round trip.

Two of New Jersey's representatives Nelly Poe and Rob Menendez were joined by New York Congressman Jerry Nadler and Dan Goldman in that letter to FIFA.

Meanwhile, state lawmakers here are asking questions about the cost to New Jersey.

That includes Republican Minority Whip Senator Mike Testa, who joins us now to talk it all through as part of our Under the Dome series.

Senator, so great to have you.

Thanks for joining us.

Thank you for having me on this really important issue.

You are calling, you and several of your colleagues in Trenton are calling for a joint hearing with the New York New Jersey host committee.

What type of answers are you looking for from folks on that committee.

We want to know what type of financial obligations are going to be placed on the backs of the taxpayers of the state of New Jersey.

You know this is a really wonderful opportunity for the state of New Jersey to highlight everything that we have here.

Holding and hosting a world class sporting event like the World Cup is a unique opportunity.

But it shouldn't be on the backs of the taxpayers of the state of New Jersey.

And this is an event that's been in the planning stages for a number of years.

One would think that all of the kinks would be worked out by now.

You know how much is it going to cost in overtime for all of our police, fire, EMS?

Why are these ticket prices rising so high in contrast with a city like Philadelphia?

They're keeping their fares exactly the same.

So we just have a number of questions that I think that the hardworking taxpayers of the state of New Jersey many of whom cannot possibly afford to even attend an event like the World Cup.

They deserve answers.

Well let me ask you this.

You say you don't want this to fall on the backs of New Jersey taxpayers.

And we've heard NJ Transit CEO Chris Calori say look this is what it costs for rerouting trains.

We're making buses available.

If those train systems go down they can't have a situation where we know NJ Transit has dealt with Amtrak wirehead issues.

My long way of asking you do you think that it's the right move for the governor to prioritize putting the onus on the ticket payers or FIFA rather than New Jersey taxpayers.

Well certainly I don't want that onus on the backs of New Jersey taxpayers but I think it's appropriate to put it on FIFA for sure because look we need to find out how much money is being generated for the state of New Jersey by hosting the World Cup.

This shouldn't be a situation where FIFA just gets to profit off the backs of the hardworking taxpayers of the state of New Jersey.

They should have to pay their share considering that New Jersey is going to be having those massive reroutes.

We already have a very strange transit system here in the state of New Jersey and they faced a number of problems and I want to be clear I really respect President Calori he's become a friend of mine and he's doing a very good job at trying to make New Jersey transit you know a much better organization than it was under prior leadership and he's done a good job and I think he inherited this issue but it certainly shouldn't be done at the inconvenience and at the cost to the taxpayers of the state of New Jersey.

You've tried to reignite a slogan under former Governor Tom Kane Sr.

"New Jersey and you, perfect together again" would be your addition to that slogan.

We see some lawmakers on the Democratic side who would like to see an increase in the sales tax during the period around the games in the region around where fans will be staying.

Do you think that that is the right move one for New Jersey to get the most out of the games and two to be a tourism state and a tourism destination two part question there?

I don't think gouging people who are visiting the state of New Jersey for tourism purposes is a really good idea.

That's certainly not going to want them to come back to the state of New Jersey whether it's for you know a worldwide renowned sporting event like the World Cup or to visit.

You know so many of our beaches at the Jersey Shore or our casino industry in Atlantic City.

That isn't a good message to send to people who want to come and experience the great things that we have here in the state of New Jersey.

I mean because we truly have such a diverse set of entertainment whether you want to be at the beach whether you want to be at the casino nightlife the great culinary destinations that we have here in the state of New Jersey agritourism you know aquaculture tourism that we have we should not be trying to gouge the very people who we are trying to get to visit the state of New Jersey.

Make no mistake.

New Jersey is an expensive place to live.

It's also a pretty expensive place to visit.

We shouldn't be trying to gouge them harder than they already are in the spending that they are doing in our state.

Overall do you say that a game like this that the FIFA World Cup games coming to New Jersey is in that positive.

Do you believe this will be a good thing for our state.

I think time will tell actually.

Like I want to make sure you know what we've already discussed is highly important.

I know worldwide events like this are usually hotbeds for human trafficking.

I'm very concerned about that.

I'm very concerned about the strain this is going to place on our transit system our police our fire our first responders and also with potentially the inconvenience to the people who utilize New Jersey transit each and every day to get to their places of employment.

So I think time will tell about this.

But I certainly don't want this to be a negative on the taxpayers of the state of New Jersey who are already overburdened.

Have you heard from the host committee whether or not they will come in for a hearing.

We have not heard yet to my knowledge.

And again this this letter was only sent I think it was three days ago now four days ago.

So I'm hoping that we hear from them All right we have to leave it there.

Senator Mike Testa appreciate your time and your perspective today.

Thank you.

Thank you for having me.

Under the Dome is made possible in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting a private corporation funded by the American people.

Tonight a deeper look at how a wounded construction worker became a relentless champion of 9/11 responders.

John Feale rushed to Ground Zero on September 11th and that act changed his life forever.

After suffering a devastating injury days later at the site, he went on to become a leading voice in the fight for responders' health care and compensation on Capitol Hill.

Now as we look ahead to the 25th anniversary of the attack, Thiel is sharing that journey and the stories of those who stood beside him in a new book titled "I Will Follow You Anywhere."

He'll also be speaking May 7th at the National September 11 Memorial and Museum alongside fellow advocates who have testified before Congress.

John Feal joins us now.

John, it is so good to have you back on the show as it always is.

As I noted at the top this year will mark the 25th anniversary.

What do you remember most vividly about the moment you decided to go to ground zero.

And how did that change the course of your life.

Well one thank you for having me again and I'm humbled to be here.

I'm humbled to be alive.

You know I look back and I don't really reminisce.

And I would never be in the help of a lot of therapy over the years.

I can block out what I did at ground zero five and a half days before my injury.

But if I close my eyes I can smell the carnage to death the destruction.

Probably why I don't sleep a lot.

But it's definitely the smell that is always going to haunt me.

What I saw I choose to remember the good.

I remember the humanity in people.

I remember uniform non-uniform coming together.

Man woman black white didn't matter.

It was all about humanity.

There was no titles.

We've all human beings.

We all gave of ourselves.

Some gave more than others.

But those that died that horrific Tuesday morning my heart bleeds for their families because this is a wound that hasn't closed.

But those that didn't lose someone and is still suffering from their illnesses.

Why I fight and why I advocate is why I do this 24/7.

How did you though John transform.

I mean you are a construction supervisor.

You had this traumatizing injury.

I mean an eight thousand pound piece of steel.

How did you transform from that and from doing that work into an activist who has taken on Congress and won.

Yeah I mean I don't want to cliche it but I don't think you know you don't know one knows what they capable of until they have to.

I'm right where I'm supposed to be right now.

And this wasn't on my bingo card in 2001 and 2.

Technically it's still not on my bingo card because sometimes I'm just I'm in shock and awe of looking back over the last 25 years that I've been able to help a lot of people.

And I think what I'm going to remember most is the friendships and the bridges that were formed.

So people that are fluid and vulnerable like me can collaborate and move forward together and ensure that the masses get the help they get.

I wanted to tell about not Jon Stewart and Jon Field but I wanted to tell about 12 13 14 people who were heroes before they ever met me and what they did at Ground Zero and how they got sick and how they joined team David to fight Goliath.

And we didn't win just once.

You know we passed seven bills in Congress and 20 altogether in Albany New Jersey Michigan.

And while they they coined it guerrilla lobbying I call it humanity.

I call it challenging their humanity to do what's right.

You know when we don't value human life then we fail.

And I feel that a lot of things in life but I'm never going to fail at value in human life.

Yeah you made it a point in the book to make sure that the story is told of those other responders but I mean you made hundreds almost 500 trips to Washington alongside you know your brothers and sisters in advocacy there but it took nearly a decade for the James Zadroga Act to be to be signed into law and even now there are issues with the World Health World Trade Center health program.

I know you were scheduled to have a meeting with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

about staffing cuts about funding and funding research delays.

What does that say to you about how this issue is still being handled 25 years later.

And can you give us an update on whether or not you still plan to speak with him.

Oh yeah we definitely plan on speaking with him.

It's just a matter of everybody's schedule because there's more than just being him.

You know go back a little over a year ago when Elon Musk cut everything and then Kennedy started cutting NIOSH who administrates the World Trade Center health program.

You know the original bill in 2010 calls for one hundred and twenty people to be staffed to oversee the World Trade Center health program.

We've never made it to one hundred twenty people but the program was doing its job and it was running efficiently.

Right now it is 83 people working for NIOSH that oversee the enrollment and the certification of illnesses at the World Trade Center Health Program.

It's come to a complete halt and getting these people into the program is is literally an Olympic event right now.

But we're working diligently to fix that to ensure that Kennedy does the right thing.

But it's not just the enrollment and the certification.

It's getting the 20 million dollars back a year for research for future illnesses.

It's also putting heart cardiac cognitive and autoimmune back on the table because they would have been voted on last year.

And thousands of people would have been able to make amendments to their claim and get help from the health care that they deserve.

So you know if you go back after 9/11 nobody ever apologized.

They said the air was safe to breathe.

The water was safe to drink.

Nobody apologized.

Chrissy Todd Whitman tried but it was weak at best.

But what they did was create the World Trade Center Health Program.

I was part of that.

I helped create the World Trade Center Health Program.

They considered me a founding father.

That was their sorry.

That was their apology.

But they made us fight and still fight right now for over two decades for that apology.

They're literally putting a carrot at the end of the stick and we're chasing it which is the World Trade Center Health Program.

And you know we always win.

And I don't call a win a win like in the sense of a baseball game.

You won because people suffer and die while we're in the process of fighting and advocating.

And it's not it's not a clean win.

But they always have obstacles and hurdles in front of us.

And you know we used to have to sidestep and walk around them and say please and beg.

We don't beg no more.

We don't beg.

We walk through these obstacles and hurdles.

Now members of Congress work for the American people.

And if you want to be an advocate or an activist that's your number one thing to remember.

They work You don't have to go.

Yes sir you're a superstar.

Can I get a picture with you.

Do your job.

Shut up and do what you man.

Well then let's let's leave it on that note because your book is part memoir part guidebook.

What is one thing that folks can take from your book about what they can do when they feel helpless against large government systems.

Is there one piece of advice you can leave with folks?

Show them that you have endurance and stamina.

You know, at the end of each chapter in the book is the recipe, the playbook on how you can get involved and engaged, whether it's at the local, state, federal level, if you want to get legislation passed.

And if I can do it, anybody can do it.

My IQ is around room temperature at best.

And I want, listen, you know, you're going to laugh, you're going to cry, you're going to get mad.

But if somebody from Minnesota or Texas or anywhere across the country reaches out to me and says, I have this piece of legislation and I want to do this, then I'm going to help them.

I'm going to help them and I'm going to get them involved.

Because the American people deserve better than what's happening right now.

Take 9/11 out of the equation.

This country is on fire because two parties rather see each other lose than the American people win.

And that's a shame.

And the last time I checked we're all human beings.

John feel.

Thank you for coming on the show.

The physical copies of the book will be out in the fall.

Thank you so much.

Thank Well, New Jersey is heading into this new budget season facing a complicated financial squeeze less revenue coming in and more costs shifting to the state.

Now much of that pressure is tied to sweeping federal tax and spending changes enacted last year under the Trump administration.

State officials mourn those policies could translate to hundreds of millions in lost revenue and new spending obligations even as some federal funding is rising in the short term.

But what does it all mean for taxpayers and of course the state's fiscal future?

Our budget and finance writer John Reitmeyer is with us now to explain He's been looking into the numbers and of course the politics behind them John.

It is so good to see you.

Thanks for coming on What are some of the biggest ways that these federal tax changes are affecting the state budget in this current shape?

Yeah, it's great to be with you today.

So I think in the in the immediate term, the focus is really on revenue losses.

So the federal policies that were enacted came last year over the summer, but some of them went into effect immediately and some of them took a longer time and are actually still unfolding.

There were changes made on the tax policy side and also on the federal spending side.

So if we just focus on the tax policy side and the changes that were made immediately, a lot of them impacted the way businesses and corporations are taxed by the federal government.

But because of the way the state tax structure works, that has also meant the way that the state taxes businesses and corporations has changed and that means when we look at all of these things, they're complicated, but the upside is that the total amount of money the state is collecting this fiscal year, so between July 1 of last summer all the way to June 30th this year, the hit is about $500 million in lost revenue that the state is experiencing, according to estimates from Governor Mikie Sherrill's administration.

And where do they point to that $500 million has, I'm assuming, accumulated from?

What exactly?

Can you pinpoint it?

I mean, I understand that it's how it affected our tax base, but where were the specific areas?

So where it shows up the most is in what's called the state's corporation business tax.

And this is one of the bigger sources of revenue for the state budget.

So the state relies on income tax revenue, sales tax revenue.

And just behind those two sources typically is revenue from the corporation business tax.

And that's where we're seeing this 500 million dollar markdown in the forecast for the current fiscal year which again is runs through June 30th coming up.

And so then on the spending side which you touched on what are the most significant new costs that are being shifted onto the state.

The Sherrill administration estimates about 100 million dollars in new expenditures coming into the state budget for the new fiscal year that we didn't have to cover in the current fiscal year.

The biggest single item that's been highlighted by the Sherrill administration is $71 million in spending the state's going to take on to help administer food assistance programs.

And the way that works is under the old rules before the federal policy changes were made, it was a state federal share.

And the federal portion of that share with the local government side is being reduced under what's known as HR 1.

So that means if the state doesn't pick up this administrative cost, it would fall to county governments.

and that might seem mundane, but when you think of county governments in New Jersey, their main source of revenue is property taxes.

So the state is coming in and planning to spend $71 million to pick up the slack for this cost that had been covered by the federal government, with the argument being that if the state didn't do this, it would fall to basically to property taxes.

Okay.

So help us make sense of this.

In your reporting, you write that, you know, Governor Sherrill, her treasurer, Treasurer Binder, has been saying that we're facing these cuts, and yet there are many lawmakers, particularly on the Republican side, who are pointing to incoming federal funding that we are getting.

How do those two things coexist?

This is basically one of those examples where two things can be true at the same time.

There can be cuts, but the total amount of money that the state is expecting to receive through the new fiscal year from the federal government is actually going up year over year.

And that's explained by Treasurer Aaron Binder because primarily because of the Medicaid program.

And so my colleague in Washington, D.C., our correspondent Ben Hulak, has been reporting that some of these federal changes are taking effect in steps with some of the bigger changes delayed.

And so what we're seeing probably is the Medicaid funding is still coming in pretty robust, whereas there can be cuts in other parts, other line items in the budget.

And so that allows that total gross amount to actually go up, even as the state is having to absorb some cuts, like we talked about with the food assistance program.

Okay, sure.

So with a $60.7 billion budget on the table, how difficult is it going to be for lawmakers to close those gaps this time around?

It seems like a small amount, but this year, because it's becoming a tough budget year in the sense that spending is going up naturally due to things like inflation, and revenues are going up, but not quite at the rate that we're seeing spending needs increase.

So it's a squeeze where every dollar matters.

So as we get closer to the finish line June 30th for the new budget.

These are the types of things that just require more work to be done in order to bring the revenues as close as they can get to the expenditures.

All right.

John right.

Myra Forrest John thanks as always.

You're welcome.

And that's going to do it for us tonight.

But a quick note to say thank you to the team here for all of their hard work always but especially while I've been out on medical leave and continue to battle that it's great to be back with everybody I'm Brianna Vannozzi for the entire crew here at NJ spotlight news thank you for being with us and we will see you right back here tomorrow NJM insurance group serving the insurance needs of residents and businesses for more than 100 years.

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