New Jersey's Transportation Funding Impasse Imperils Jobs

New Jersey's fiscal year ended last week without any resolution over how to replenish the state's Transportation Trust Fund, a publicly funded pool of money that pays for repairs to roads, bridges and transit.

While legislators and Gov. Chris Christie battle over how much "tax fairness" is required to offset a proposed hike in the state's gas tax, the TTF will limp into August with barely $85 million. Hence Executive Order 210, issued by Christie last week and put into effect on Wednesday.

"In the absence of a legislative solution to replenish the Transportation Trust Fund," reads a Christie press release, "it is necessary to stop work temporarily on ongoing projects funded by the TTF by 11:59 p.m. on July 8, 2016 for a period of at least seven days."

That means hundreds of projects will wind down, putting potentially thousands of people out of work. (See the list of DOT projects here; NJ Transit's project list is here.)

According to Robert Briant, the CEO of the Utility and Transportation Contractors Association — as well as a Transportation Trust Fund Authority board member — the layoffs have already begun.

So far, he says over 480 construction workers, assigned to 59 projects, have received pink slips as a result of the TTF shutdown. And because summer is peak construction season, he says the timing couldn't be worse.

"A lot of these people need to make the money now to carry them through the winter time," he said, "and they're going to get hit terribly."

But Briant said there's no question that the TTF is insolvent and must be fixed.

"People say it's going broke," he said. "Quite frankly, it's been broke."

He said the TTF, which issues bonds to pay for transportation projects, pays about $1.2 billion a year in annual debt service — but only takes in about $900 million a year. The difference is made up from the state's general operating fund. 

Despite the political back-and-forth over how to fix it, Briant was optimistic. "I think there's an opportunity to get it done next week," he said.

But the fallout will be messy. Janna Chernetz, who is the New Jersey policy director for the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, said "hundreds, if not thousands of workers, are going to be laid off until the governor and the legislature can agree that fixing New Jersey’s transportation network is more important than scoring political points."

She added: "By refusing to acknowledge the TTF funding crisis, Governor Christie is now creating an entirely different transportation crisis.”

The Senate's Transportation Committee is scheduled to meet on Monday, but so far, no TTF-related business is on the agenda.