- [Narrator] Funding for this edition of State of Affairs with Steve Adubato has been provided by Holy Name.

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[INSPRATIONAL MUSIC] - Hi everyone, Steve Adubato.

Welcome to a very important conversation we have with State Assemblyman Al Barlas, who represents the 40th legislative district.

First of all, welcome Assemblyman.

- Good morning, thank you, Steve.

Thank you for having me.

- You are Bergen County, Essex, Passaic, three different counties in one legislative district.

- 15 towns.

- 15 towns.

- By way of background talk about it.

In fact, I met you through former senator Kevin O'Toole, who's now the chair of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

You work with the senator, your movement from being a "staff person," also the chair of the Republican Party in Essex County to elective office.

Talk about that journey for you.

- Never thought it would happen.

I sort of enjoyed being behind the scenes.

I enjoyed, you know, shaping policy, being involved in certain meetings, but never had a desire to put my name on a ballot.

And then after the latest round of redistricting, the opportunity presented itself for Essex County to have a representative in the delegation.

And you know, certain opportunities like that don't come around much in life.

But when it was there, I took it.

- Born in Pakistan.

- Born in Pakistan.

Moved here when I was four years old.

- Describe that.

- You know, it was, you know, I talked to my parents a lot about that and one of the reasons why they came was for opportunity, right?

I mean, Pakistan was at that time, you know, and still is to this day an unstable democracy.

It's unstable economically.

And so my parents decided that in order for them and for myself and eventually for my younger sister to have opportunities, to have a real safe, secure life, and be able to provide for yourself, they had to leave Pakistan.

And that's why we came here.

- You know, your background clearly, all of us.

I mean, I served, as you know, in the state legislature for one of the shortest terms in the history of, yeah, I know.

- I wasn't gonna go there, Steve.

I'm gonna break your record, that's my goal.

- Leave it alone, will you?

Just win your next election is the key.

I didn't, so let's do this, affordability in New Jersey.

A huge issue for all of us.

But for you, what does the state need to do in your opinion, particularly in the legislature, to deal with the affordability problem in the state?

- Look, I think that's a big issue.

I'm the first one in my family to own a home.

And property taxes, listen, they're a part of a civilized society in order to provide the services that we have.

But I think the state has to do more.

We have to fund our schools at a better level than we do today.

Granted, we made a huge investment in schools this year, but we also cut funding to a hundred some odd districts.

That's just not fair.

And when I talk affordability, obviously a lot of people immediately go to property taxes, property taxes, and property taxes.

But there's also what comes outta your paycheck and the cost of your taxes, the cost of fuel, the cost of groceries, everything is an affordability issue.

When you talk to the average New Jerseyan, it's not just their property taxes because plenty of people are renters and they still have a hard time being able to afford to live here.

So, for me, affordability is everything.

It's the cost of goods, it's the cost of services, it's obviously property taxes, and it's also creating economic opportunity for folks to have better higher paying jobs so that they can and continue to live here.

- But as someone, and the other piece of that is we've been doing an ongoing series for years about affordable, the need for affordable accessible childcare.

That's an affordability issue too.

It's an economic development issue as well.

Your views as to what needs to be done to strengthen the childcare system in the state.

- So listen, there's no doubt about it.

I have a three and a half year old and a five and a half year old.

I mean, last year between the two kids, I think we spent close to $30,000 on childcare costs.

That's after taxes, right?

So you gotta make close to $60,000 to be able to pay for two kids to go to childcare.

And that's a lot for a lot of folks.

So now you sacrifice your child's early development education or your ability to earn a living.

And these are choices that nobody should have to make, right?

And so I think there has to be more incentives to open more childcare centers.

There have to be tax incentives and tax benefits for folks who have to go to work, but have to pay for childcare.

So if you don't get it on the front end of having more childcare facilities, then the state should provide more incentives on the backend through taxes for folks who do have to pay for childcare.

- Assemblyman, let's talk a little bit about urban issues.

We do a series called Urban Matters, the graphic will be up, people can check out previous segments we did and programs we've done on Urban Matters, whole range of urban matters.

Talk about crime.

And I wanna ask you this in particular, because there's so much media coverage.

We're doing this program mid toward the late end of September.

It'll be seen later.

So much talk about crime and its connection to the migrant crisis.

Do you believe that there's an accurate description that crime is through the roof and out of control in urban communities, not other communities, but disproportionate urban communities in large part because of the immigration crisis?

- Listen, I think crime is crime.

Doesn't matter where you come from at the end of the day.

And there is there a crime problem in our state and in our country?

Absolutely there is.

You know, we could talk about the root causes of it.

You could talk about immigration, you could talk about lack of economic opportunity.

You could talk about a desperate need of folks trying to be able to just get by today.

So they resort to these types of acts in order to make ends meet.

Whatever the reason or the rationale is separate.

I think the issue that we have in Essex County for us, Steve, you're in Montclair, I'm in Cedar Grove, is crime is an issue in both urban and suburban communities.

It may be different kinds of crime, right?

But crime is still crime.

And ultimately that impacts everybody in one way or another.

Whether you feel unsafe to walk out after dark, whether you feel you're worried about your car being jacked from your driveway or your home broken into at 10 o'clock at night as you're watching TV, whatever it is, we have to address it.

And I think we have to sort of think outside the box in terms of how we provide resources to law enforcement to fight crime.

You know, you have to look at the liability issue.

You have to look at allowing police officers to pursue criminals, license plate readers that have been help for a lot of communities that are chasing car thieves up and down in our case, right?

280 Bloomfield Avenue, whatever you wanna say.

So I think we have to, we have to look at it from a perspective of, in order to fight crime and provide a safer community for both urban and suburban residents, we have to be willing to explore every and all options.

- Assemblyman lemme shift gears with the time we have left.

You call yourself a quote, pragmatic conservative, the graphic is gonna come up.

We've been doing an ongoing series called Democracy in Danger.

It is in danger.

I know you agree.

It is, it's not debatable.

You, Senator O'Toole before you and Kevin and I have talked about this for years.

He writes about it at NJ Globe as well.

You should check it out.

- He makes me read it.

- Excuse me?

- He makes me read it.

- Well, me too, but I also learn from it every time I get one of Kevin's articles.

But here's why I'm raising this.

We are so polarized.

You don't need me to tell you that.

We fight, we argue, but then we're somehow enemies.

What does it mean to be a quote pragmatic conservative and how the heck does someone who is so reasonable and moderate, like you fit into a Republican party that sometimes doesn't feel that way.

Democrats have their own extreme folks who are way, way outta the mainstream.

But how do you deal in your party as the pragmatist that you are?

- I think the biggest thing, Steve, is conversations like this.

And as I tell folks that I talk to of all ages about this issue, the one thing I always say is you don't agree with your family on a hundred percent of all issues.

You don't agree with your friends on a hundred percent of all issues.

You can disagree with somebody on their views on a particular issue, whether it's crime or education or anything else, or taxes or whatever, without that person being a bad person, right?

Steve, you've been a Democrat your entire life.

I've been a Republican my entire life.

Your lineage is second to none.

But at the end of the day, what our fathers taught us is that there's a time and a place for that, and then there's a time and a place for coming together, because there is a greater good that we all have to achieve.

And that is to move our communities and our country and our state forward.

And so you have to be willing to understand and respect the other person's point of view and be okay with taking half a loaf today in order to move the ball forward, so you can make everything better tomorrow.

- What a radical idea.

The idea of trying to find ways even when we disagree with, there's some common ground and not hate each other.

State assemblyman.

I was just elevating you to the Senate, sorry.

- Please don't do that.

I'm happy right where I am.

- State assemblyman Al Barlas from the 40th legislative district.

Thank you Assemblyman.

We appreciate it.

- Thank you, Steve.

- You got it.

Stay with us, we'll be right back.

(grand music) - [Announcer] To see more State of Affairs with Steve Adubato programs, find us online and follow us on social media.

- We're joined once again, by Mary Coogan, the CEO and President of Advocates for Children of New Jersey.

Their website will be up.

Mary, good to see you again.

- Nice to see you too, Steve.

- Mary, as we enter into the fourth quarter of 2024, it'll be seen now and later.

The number one childcare challenge in the state as you see it, is?

- Affordable childcare in which you have workers who are paid a wage that keeps them at that childcare center.

So centers are struggling to find staff that will stay and parents are trying to find childcare centers that they can afford.

- Well, as you look at, check out the website to find out more about ACNJ, but the interesting thing that you've been saying that I wanna follow up on, is you have argued that the rollout of free preschool, that as free preschool has expanded for three and four-year-olds, it's created a problem as it relates to childcare centers.

Explain that.

- Okay, so we, first, I wanna say is ACNJ has promoted preschool expansion.

We are very supportive of preschool.

We just think there's been some unintended consequences, which were exacerbated by, you know, COVID and childcare centers having to close.

And then we had, you know, billions of federal dollars coming into New Jersey, which are now gone, right?

So as the preschool expands into the suburbs, we are finding that school districts are creating their program at the school and they are not able to, or not able to partner with the community providers.

So the community providers that have been taking care of three and four-year-olds, naturally a parent will take their child out of the community provider and enroll them in the free preschool program.

And so that's having an unintended consequence.

And in fact, of the 20,000 children that had been enrolled in the preschool expansion, only 17% of them as of 2022, are actually in community providers or Head Start programs.

- Unintended consequences.

Even when you're trying to do the right thing, we have to understand that there are consequences.

The other thing I wanna follow up on, I wanna make it clear that that Mary is part of the First 1000 Days Coalition.

What is that coalition, Mary, and why does it matter?

- So the coalition is several of our early learning funders, right?

The Turrell Fund, the Burke Foundation, and some of their partners have decided to team together to see if they can't address this childcare problem.

But they're looking at the first thousand days of just prenatal to age three.

And what supports can a new family use to really ensure that they thrive?

And recognizing that that period of time is critical development for a child.

- Lemme also disclose, you mentioned the Turrell Fund, an underwriter of our programming.

Let me, let me ask you this, the kids count, Newark Kids Count 2024 Report, I saw an interview you did on NJ Spotlight News.

People should check that out that Mary did.

I want you to talk about a couple of the most significant findings in the Newark Kids Count.

There's a report that's done on a regular basis about the state of children, of kids, and there's a report that ACNJ is Advocates for Children of New Jersey did on Newark children, also, it's in Spanish, which is particularly important.

Couple of the most important findings about the state of our children in Brick City, Newark, New Jersey, please, Mary.

- Okay, thank you.

So, yes, this is our first translated kids count into Spanish.

We've been doing the book since 1997, and part of translating it was in recognition of the increasing population of Latino or Hispanic heritage.

So that's like 42%.

And we do think that parents have a role to play in advocating for positive incomes for their children.

So in terms of like the childcare centers, there has been a decrease in the number of childcare centers available in Newark as well as a decrease in what you call family care providers.

So these are people that provide childcare at their home.

I think to me, most critical is the literacy problem, right?

So you have, there's just too many children who are not proficient in reading by third grade.

As we know, you learn to read by third grade, and then after third grade you read to learn, right?

So if you're not proficient, you're always gonna be behind.

And so... well statewide, there's only 42% of kids who are proficient by third grade.

And so that means there's 57, 58% who are not proficient.

But in Newark, you have 19% of kids are proficient in reading and in math, which is the other category they score by eighth grade, you have 37% are proficient.

But that's abysmal too.

And kids need to know basic math even if they don't go on to higher learning.

You need basic math skills to get by and be successful in life.

- And P.S., check out the interviews that we've done with State Senator Teresa Ruiz, who represents the city of Newark.

She's been a leader in the state legislature on the issue of literacy.

One more quick one on this, Mary.

I'm curious about this question.

You've talked about a quote, mixed delivery model of childcare.

What the heck is that and could you give an example of it real quick?

- Sure, so mixed delivery says that the school district partners with a community provider.

So a childcare center that has been providing childcare to children and they run a preschool program in the childcare center.

And in that partnership, you have the benefit of kids being able to stay there the whole day.

You don't need before care and aftercare.

You don't need to transport kids like you do if they're just in the preschool program in the district, right?

You have parent choice.

And so to us, it's very important that school districts partner with community providers.

Also school districts don't have to build more classrooms, right, as we try to expand.

So I think it's a win-win, but it definitely helps parents not have to shift their kids.

They can have summer care if they continue with a community provider, and holidays when schools aren't open.

- Final, final state support for childcare, strong enough in your opinion?

- No, but neither is the federal, it needs to be a partnership.

So that is one thing that the First Thousand Days Coalition is looking at, but really to determine what's the best way to do it.

So there's several bills that are pending, which could help, but we do need to view childcare like a public good.

It's just like our trains and our roads.

It's part of our infrastructure.

It is what enables people to go to work, right?

And enables people to pay taxes.

So we do need to make sure, even though childcare is a business, that it is supported.

- Mary Coogan, CEO, and President of Advocates for Children of New Jersey, ACNJ.

Mary, as always, thank you for joining us, we appreciate it.

- Thank you.

- You got it.

Stay with us, we'll be right back.

(grand music) - [Announcer] To see more State of Affairs with Steve Adubato programs, find us online and follow us on social media.

- We are now joined by Jim Tedesco, who is the Bergen County executive.

Good to see you.

Mr. Executive, how you doing?

- I'm good, Steve, how are you?

It's been, you know, a little over eight years since we got together.

- Let me ask you this, does Bergen County still have 70 municipalities?

- Still does, so almost a million people.

The largest county in the state, larger than five states in the nation - It's larger than five states?

- Yes, sir.

- The most pressing issues in Bergen County other than traffic on 17 is what?

Okay, yeah, you knew I was going there.

(James laughs) Okay, biggest issues.

Go ahead.

- Trying to take care of the people.

You know, actually, the county is in good shape.

you know, from a standpoint, Steve, of things happening in Bergen County.

We're doing really well.

And could we always, you know, improve?

Sure, but at the end of the day, taking care of the people that need help the most, that's really what we're focusing on.

So whether it's mental health, whether it's addiction, whether it's more open space, whether it's trying to help food insecurity, you know, the things that really are affecting the people today, right?

I can't deal with their... with a lot of the kitchen table issues because we don't control a lot of that.

Our part of the budget's the smallest part of the taxpayer's taxes.

But at the end of the day, because we touch so many people, we believe that we have a responsibility to help people have a better life and to make their lives as best they can.

- So, lemme let me ask you this, Jim.

The county option hospital free program, what is that and who does it impact?

- So the county hospital option plan was designed to help folks that are on Medicaid get services from all of the hospitals here in Bergen County and throughout the state of New Jersey.

The program is now statewide.

It started as a pilot and then went statewide.

So it's really to make sure that those folks that need that type of healthcare, that really are in that section where they don't have a lot of commercial insurance or they're not charity care, but that are on Medicaid, that they have places that they can go and get serviced.

And so this program recognizes and pays the hospitals for helping people with Medicaid provide all of those services.

So those that provide a lot of services stand to make more money than those hospitals that don't.

- Where's the money come from, Jim?

- So it comes from CMS, from the federal government, to the state of New Jersey.

And then the state of New Jersey administers it through the county option program statewide.

- If someone goes on the website, your website, can they access this?

- They can find out about...

They can find out about the county option.

- Okay.

- But it's not a program...

It's not a program that touches the individual.

It's a hospital-based program.

- Got it.

So they...

They submit numbers to us every quarter to say, "We treated this many Medicaid people and they're entitled to this much reimbursement."

You got it.

So they pay us in the beginning, they pay us a fee based on their prior use, their prior service, and then when when they true up, we send them back money based on how much activity they have done with Medicaid residents.

- Let me ask you this.

I was joking...

I'm not joking, there are 70 counties and some of them are really small.

- Yes, sir.

So here's the thing I keep wondering about.

The issue of home rule gets talked about, "oh, it's a home rule.

We want our own schools, we want our own police department, we want our own fire department.

By the way, keep our property taxes down."

It doesn't add up.

What specific tangible, impactful initiatives are there in Bergen County for if not merging of towns, 'cause that's not gonna happen, shared services?

County Executive Tedesco, please.

- So just a month ago, we announced that the county will now provide free 911 service for all 70 municipalities.

So today, many towns answered 911 calls by their own... with their own people, police officers, or individuals.

And then some are regionalized.

We have a large 911 communication center.

And when we started to look at it, we realized that we could take on all 911 service for the entire county, make it a regionalized 911 center, and the cost would be borne throughout the county for that service.

So we just announced that and we've had probably six or seven towns already come on board.

So that'll be a direct savings.

Now listen, at the end of the day, the taxpayer's gonna pay for it either in their local municipal tax or at the cap..

But what we can do is leverage our buying power and our infrastructure where local municipalities can't do that.

So there's a perfect example of a shared service and the benefits that that would provide.

We just stood up a little over a year ago... EMS transportation in Bergen County and throughout the country, New Jersey.

there's been a shortage of EMS volunteers, right?

The volunteer fire departments, volunteer EMS.

Well, the mayors came to us and said, "You have to help us.

We don't have the volunteers anymore.

We can't put an ambulance in the road.

Our taxpayers, our people are waiting for 40 minutes for an ambulance."

So within six months, we stood up an ambulance response countywide.

We now have six ambulances on the road.

We've answered over... We've transported over 8,000 people in about 15 months to local hospitals.

And here's a perfect example of what the county's role can do to improve the welfare of the people of the county.

- Got 30 seconds left.

Traffic gonna improve anytime soon?

Up around 17, the bottle.. Go ahead.

- Great, great news.

We got approval for eliminating the bottleneck on Route 17.

The state and the NJTPA have funded the project.

We're in engineering, and I won't tell you the completion date because it's out there, but 300- - It's out there.

(laughs) $386 million is now earmarked for the road widening of the bottleneck.

And we're on our way.

It was one of the things that I said when I got elected 10 years ago, I wanted to do, and we're finally there.

- We will hold the county executive of Bergen County to that.

We'll have him back.

Even though he didn't give us a date, he said progress is being made.

Jim Tedesco.

Hey Jim, I wanna thank you so much for joining us.

We appreciate it.

- Steve, thank you so much.

- I'm Steve Adubato, that's the county executive.

We'll see you next time.

- [Narrator] State of Affairs with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Celebrating 30 years in public broadcasting.

Funding has been provided by Holy Name.

The Turrell Fund, a foundation serving children.

The New Jersey Education Association.

Kean University.

Johnson & Johnson.

New Jersey Children’s Foundation.

New Jersey Sharing Network.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

And by The Fidelco Group.

Promotional support provided by The New Jersey Business & Industry Association.

And by Northjersey.com and Local IQ.

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