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[INSPRATIONAL MUSIC] - Hi everyone.

Steve Adubato here.

We kick off the program welcoming the mayor of our capital city in the great state of New Jersey.

Trenton, New Jersey.

Mayor Reed Gusciora.

Mayor.

Good to see you.

- Great to be here.

- You got it.

Hey, listen, we'll talk about some of the challenges and problems you face in just a minute, but you're particularly proud of Trenton because?

- Well, it's the capital city.

We're gonna be in center stage at the Semiquincentennial celebration in two years.

We know that most of the battles were happened in New Jersey and-- - [Steve] Hold on.

That's the 250th anniversary of?

The United States-- - [Reed] Of our nations founding.

1776 to-- - [Steve] And there was a bit of a battle in Trenton, was there not?

- Yes.

That's when General Washington crossed over the Delaware into Trenton.

- So what are you gonna do to celebrate?

- Well, we wanna link up all our historic sites.

We wanna attract some historic visitors.

We're very excited and we're also sprucing up some of our historic places so that it will be really convenient for people to walk around town and see the sites.

- Good stuff.

Help us understand this.

Trenton is the capital city in the state of New Jersey, as a former state representative, a state legislator back in the day.

By the way, Reed was also a state legislator.

I lost my seat in the legislature.

He got promoted to being the mayor of Trenton.

I remember down there how it was always an issue about the question of there being a hotel in Trenton.

Are we closer?

- We are closer.

It went out of business and there are parties that are interested in purchasing it, and it's gonna be a focal point of our downtown district renaissance.

- The other issue that really is interesting to me is this whole issue of state aid.

There's a $10 million grant, I don't know if it's a grant, but it's state money that goes to the city of Trenton, capital city aid.

What exactly is that aid for, Reed?

- Well, about 52% of our property is tax exempt, and that's either owned by the government or God and neither pay property taxes.

- So hold on.

Churches or government.

Right?

- That's correct.

Hospitals, nonprofits.

- Do not pay for property taxes.

Go ahead.

- Yeah.

52% of our land is tax exempt.

So we have to go to the rest of our residents to make up for that.

But we expect the state government to pay some sort of taxes.

They pay a pilot payment in lieu of property taxes.

The Murphy administration has been good to us.

We got about 45 million last year.

Under Chris Christie we got 6 million.

- What's that money for specifically?

- That money pays for police protection, pays for the roads, pays for our parks, and it helps us get things done in the capital city.

We're a distressed city, so we rely on state aid to fill the gaps.

- What does distressed city mean?

That's a category that has an awful lot to do with state aid.

What is distress?

What does it mean to be distressed?

- Well, it's also based on income factors of the population, and that includes food deserts that we don't have nutritional options for a lot of our citizens, but crime is higher than in the suburbs.

And so we really need to fill the gaps with state aid for all of the challenges that an urban city has.

- So let's talk about economic development.

The New Jersey Economic Development Authority is engaged in Trenton specifically around, is it a business incubator?

Is that what it is?

- Yeah, we're actually-- - What does that mean?

- We're gonna put in a business incubator.

A firm is coming in to help fund startups in the capital city.

A lot of our young business leaders, they have great business ideas, but they don't have the capital.

And an incubator will be able to help them get started, fund them and give them space to develop business ideas.

- The other initiative that's really important, and we've talked a lot about this check out our website will come up right now steveadubato.org.

We've done a whole range of interviews with the First Lady, Tammy Murphy and her initiative Nurture NJ, which deals with a whole range of issues connected to maternal health.

There is a maternal, in Trenton, the state capital of New Jersey, and the mayor's gonna talk about this.

There is a maternal and infant health innovation center.

What exactly is it, mayor and why is it so significant?

- Well, we don't have maternity services in Trenton.

After the closure of the hospital, if you give birth, you have to go in the suburbs.

So this actually brings those resources-- - Hold on one second.

You don't have, there's no hospital in Trenton?

- There is a hospital but it doesn't have maternal services.

- Okay.

Go ahead.

I apologize.

Go ahead.

- Capital Health is trauma care, cardiac care, but it does not have a maternity ward.

So if you want to have a baby, you have to go to the suburbs.

The unfortunate thing is a lot of our residents don't have transportation options and it's difficult getting to places that can give them prenatal care.

The First Lady has stepped up to the plate, we're gonna actually have a maternal innovation center that's gonna be right in the north ward and it's gonna enable research and to have a place where healthy babies can be taken care of.

- Hold on, I just wanna be clear.

Are you saying mayor, that at this maternal and infant health innovation center, can mothers give birth there?

- They can't be birthed there, but there'll be resources for prenatal care and postnatal care and we're still working on having birthing options inside the capital city.

- All right, last question.

Food insecurity issues are huge in Trenton.

How serious is the problem, mayor?

- It's very serious and particularly in communities of color where diseases are prevalent relating to food insecurity.

We only have a half dozen food convenience stores for a city of about a hundred thousand.

So we're grateful that the EDA is actually having food insecurity grants-- - The Economic Development Authority.

Go ahead.

- The EDA is actually gonna offer food insecurity grants to communities such as Trenton.

We hope to take advantage of it and increase nutritional options for residents.

- Mayor Reed Gusciora, former state legislator in the great state of New Jersey.

Now the mayor of our capital city, Trenton, New Jersey.

Mayor, thank you so much for joining us.

We appreciate it.

- Thank you, Steve.

- You guys stay with us.

We'll be right back.

- To see more Sate of Affairs with Steve Adubato programs, visit us online at stateofaffairsnj.org.

If you would like to express an opinion, email us at info@caucusnj.org.

Find us on Facebook at facebook.com/steveadubatophd and follow us on X @steveadubato.

- We're now joined by Cathy Chin, who's executive director of the Alliance for the Betterment of Citizens with Disabilities, ABCD.

Cathy, good to have you with us.

- Thank you for having me.

Good to be here.

- The website's up.

Tell everyone what the organization does and who you service every day.

- Certainly.

ABCD is a trade association.

Our member agencies provide services in the community here in New Jersey for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

In addition to our adult services, which include support coordination day and residential services and supports.

14 of our member agencies provide services to early intervention, EI, and in calender year 2023, those 14 agencies served over 65% of the children enrolled in EI here in the state of New Jersey.

- Early intervention, EI.

- Correct.

- Be really clear, so everyone understands what the heck early intervention means, who it's for, and what the impact is, please.

- Certainly, early intervention is a family centered, evidence-based program, which uses, in the main, physical, occupational, and speech language therapists who provide services to infants and toddlers, zero to three, with developmental delays or disabilities.

The goal of early intervention is to prevent or minimize permanent disability.

Now, since 85% of brain development occurs within the first three years of a child's life.

- 85%?

- Correct.

This is a critical period in which to identify and address disabilities and delays before they become significant barriers to development.

- So let's, we talk about a lot of fiscal matters in the state, what the budget looks like.

We're literally recording this a few days before the budget by the constitution is supposed to be struck on the last day of June.

We're taping a little bit before that.

In the state budget, what is allotted for, or to your organization, A, and B, what is it that you're looking for?

Because my understanding is there's an increase.

- There is no increase for our rates for our agencies.

It remains flat funded.

We're asking for a 3% increase, inflationary increase, of $4.4 million, so we don't lose ground, because we have seen a positive trend.

But it's important to keep that positive trend moving forward.

- So again, there's so many issues in the State House that are contentious and are partisan and whatever.

Who the heck would be against what you are talking about?

- I don't know.

I mean, it's a question, of course, of priorities.

- "Priorities."

Yeah, priorities.

- These are our children and in New Jersey, I'm happy to say that the National Institute for Early Education Research, which is based out of Rutgers Graduate School of Education, did a recent study and they found that 4% of children, zero to three, here in the state of New Jersey, receive early intervention services compared to the national average, which is 3.7%.

So Steve, we are doing better than the national average, however, Massachusetts is at 10%.

- Hold on one second.

These numbers can get confusing, but there's nothing confusing about what you just said.

Of all the children, zero to three, that need intervention, 4% of all of the kids that need?

- No, no, no, I'm sorry.

4% of all children, zero to three, in the state of New Jersey receive early intervention.

- Okay.

- I apologize.

- Let me try it this way.

Of those who need early intervention, do we have any idea what percent of those children actually get that intervention that is so critically important?

- Well, according to the study, 4% actually received it.

But we believe that there are many more children out there.

In fact, the study that I referenced, and it was a nationwide study, but it looked at every single state, and they found that access to early intervention was highly inequitable.

Specifically children, minorities, low income, urban, rural, and children in foster care do not have, we do not have the capacity, the professionals, to serve this population.

- Why is that and what needs to be done to change that?

- Well, this is a nationwide problem, the supply side, of PTs, OTs, and speech language therapists, it's a nationwide problem.

- Hold on, PT.

- Specific, I'm sorry.

- What kind of therapists?

- Yes, I'm sorry.

Physical, occupational, and speech language therapists, they're the ones who provide the services to the infants and toddlers - Why the heck it is so disproportionate in terms of who gets the intervention, who doesn't get the intervention, and what needs to be addressed to, if not fix it, improve it.

- Okay, so it's a supply side issue.

It is a national problem, but specific to New Jersey, for over a decade and a half, early intervention did not receive a rate increase and there was a very small cohort of people who actually even knew what early intervention was, which is a failure in advocacy.

But since FY 2022, due to the incredible efforts by the New Jersey legislature, Governor Murphy, and Commissioners Persichilli followed by Baston, we did receive increase.

- That's the Department of Health?

- Correct, yes.

And those increases were not just rate increases, but additional staff in the Department of Health to oversee early intervention.

And we saw in calendar year 2023 that we were able to serve 17,000 children in early intervention, which is thousands more than in years past.

And our wait list over the last year, from June to June, has been reduced by 68%.

But the number of children on that wait list still exceeds what we were seeing prior to 2019.

And PTs, OTs, excuse me, physical, occupational, and speech language therapists, are still opting to work in hospitals, nursing homes, and schools, bottom line, because the benefits are better.

The wages are better.

They're keeping pace with wage growth.

We don't have that capacity.

- Cathy, let me ask you this.

As these children grow up, become older, become adults, adults with the disabilities you're talking about, how challenging is it for them to gain gainful employment?

- It is, I can't give you stats, but I can tell you anecdotally- - I don't wanna know stats.

I want you to describe it for us.

- It becomes much more difficult.

Many of my provider agencies when I was introduced, I said that we provide services to adults, and those provider agencies say, if we see them in early intervention, we're less likely to see them in our day programs when they become adults.

Data has shown that in addition to the savings from early intervention in the K through 12 system, Medicaid, and healthcare, there is increased workforce participation among adults who received early intervention as children.

It's quite magical.

- Cannot thank you enough, Cathy Chin, who is in fact the executive director of the Alliance for the Betterment of Citizens with Disabilities.

Cathy, it will not be the last time you join us as we continue the conversation that's so important.

Thank you, Cathy.

- Very kind of you.

Thank you for your generosity.

- It's a lot kinder of you to do the work you're doing.

Stay with us.

We'll be right back.

- To see more Sate of Affairs with Steve Adubato programs, visit us online at stateofaffairsnj.org.

If you would like to express an opinion, email us at info@caucusnj.org.

Find us on Facebook at facebook.com/steveadubatophd and follow us on X @steveadubato.

- We're now joined by Kevin Walsh, who is the acting New Jersey state comptroller.

Kevin, good to have you with us.

- Thanks for having me.

- Describe the role of the state comptroller, and hopefully we'll be able to put up a website so people can find out more about what you and your colleagues do in the Comptroller's Office.

- Sure, so the Office of the State Comptroller is an independent office that functions as a watchdog for the executive branch.

About 2,000 entities are under our jurisdiction.

And we find facts and we share them with the public, with the goal of making government more transparent and accountable.

- Along those lines, the Comptroller's Office involved in a report.

There's a report that came out about the New Jersey State Police, correct?

- Yes, sir.

- What is the most alarming aspect of that report in terms of your findings?

- We're required annually to evaluate whether the New Jersey State Police is complying with reforms that have been put in place for a couple of decades now following a consent decree with the United States Department of Justice.

And our job- - Hold, on Kevin.

Let's put that in perspective.

The federal government got involved because racial profiling had been going on for many years involving New Jersey State Police, people on the highways, disproportionately African American, Latino being pulled over, stopped, racially profiling.

Feds came in, consent decree.

Pick it up from there, Kevin.

- Yeah, so the consent decree was in place for about a decade.

And in 2009, it ended, and this office was asked by the legislature to report annually on whether the State Police and the Attorney General's Office are complying with the requirements of that consent decree.

And so we're supposed to issue a report every year.

We issued a report this year.

We took a look at the process by which the New Jersey State Police evaluates whether the data trends show any discrimination is occurring.

And so the motor vehicle stops result in data.

That data is analyzed.

And what we found is the State Police, although it analyzed the data, although it met on it, it generally did a bad job of doing anything in response to it.

There was no action taken, despite pretty troubling trends in the data.

- Listen, you can check out our interview with the head of the, the superintendent of the State Police.

Check out our website.

But I'm curious about this.

From your perspective, Kevin, is it your job as the comptroller, along with your team, to try to understand why nothing was done or very little was done?

- Yeah, that's what we do.

- Or is it just to report that not much was done?

- Yeah, we take a look at the documents.

We conduct interviews.

We ask those sorts of questions.

And what we found out is that the data showed, year after year, that people of color in New Jersey were more likely to be pulled over.

Once pulled over, they were more likely to be searched.

And those searches were less likely than the white folks who were pulled over to be successful, and they were more likely to have force used again 'em.

So we asked the State Police, and then we asked the Attorney General's Office, "What are you doing about this?

Your job is to proactively address these risks."

And we were disappointed to find out that, although they meet on it a lot, although they collect and analyze a lot of the data, there are few answers coming from the State Police about what the cause of this is and there's no action.

- So the head of the State Police reports to the attorney general?

- That's right.

- Who's responsible for the lack, from your perspective, the lack of progress, the lack of improvement over the fact that New Jersey has this long history of racial profiling.

And your report showed what it did.

Who's responsible?

- It's a really multi-layered problem that has been developing for more than a decade.

And so there's a lot of people who are responsible.

Multiple systems, it seems, have broken down.

My sense is that it's, there's sorta been a collective shrug of the shoulders at the State Police from very high-ranking people who are responsible for advising the superintendent on these things.

But in the Attorney General's Office, they were asking the right questions.

They asked the right questions year after year, meeting after meeting, and they didn't get any answers.

And so it is an issue that we have asked the State Police and the Attorney General's Office by August to report back to us what they're gonna do.

Because we made a commitment as a state that our highways will be free of discrimination, and thus far, we're not doing everything we can to keep that commitment.

- The Comptroller's Office, is it your job to examine not just state government, but every level of government?

Because you had very specific things to say about certain public officials and certain local governments across the state and how you felt they spent state dollars as it relates to COVID.

So it's not just state government; it's other governments as well.

Who, what- - Yeah so- - Receive state dollars?

- Yeah.

Our job is to oversee the entire executive branch, to uncover the facts, and to report on them and to make recommendations for improvement.

And so that applies to the smallest water commission and sewer authority, all the way up to the largest state agency.

And as an independent agency, we report the facts independently.

The work we do, it's my decision, usually, as to what we focus on.

And we share the facts about fraud, waste, abuse, inefficiency, and in this case, a system that's broken down around preventing discrimination.

- So I wanna be clear.

You don't report to the governor, correct?

- We're independent, and so the governor does not tell us what to do.

We literally send our reports to the governor and to the legislative leadership, but as an independent agency, the Governor's Office doesn't tell us what to do.

We've been empowered under law to act independently on behalf of the residents and taxpayers of New Jersey.

- So you don't have a boss who is the governor?

See, the attorney general's independent, but the attorney general's appointed by the governor.

You were appointed by?

- By the governor.

- But you don't report to the governor?

- Who acts independently like the attorney general.

- Okay.

So do you, I got about a minute left.

Do you care, Kevin, who gets peeved what you and your colleagues conclude, what your reports, your research, your finding, what your findings are?

Do you care what anyone thinks about your conclusions and reports?

- Yeah, I'd like the residents of New Jersey to know that we're reporting the facts in a straightforward way, in an independent way.

But upsetting folks sometimes, Steve, that is a part of being the watchdog.

And I'm proud to do that job on behalf of the residents of the state.

- Kevin Walsh is the acting New Jersey state comptroller.

Kevin, thank you very much.

We appreciate you joining us.

- Thank you.

- You got it, I'm Steve Adubato.

Thank you so much for watching.

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 Kean University.

NJM Insurance Group.

The New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

New Brunswick Development Corporation.

Veolia, Atlantic Health System.

And by PSEG Foundation.

Promotional support provided by Insider NJ.

And by NJBIZ.

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

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