[INSPRATIONAL MUSIC STING] - 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.

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