Transit aid tops N.J. fall agenda

The last months of 2008 will look a lot like the first two when lawmakers return to Trenton.

Transportation will take center stage again after the Legislature's summer break, with Gov. Corzine expected to announce soon a revamped plan to pay for projects such as bridge repairs, road widening, and a new commuter rail tunnel to New York.

Corzine's first proposal to fund that work, put forward shortly after New Year's, included steep highway toll increases and fell flat. Alternate plans floated since then by Democratic lawmakers also involve raising taxes or tolls, but legislators say Corzine's next effort will have less sting for drivers already hurting from high gas prices.

"I can assure you that the toll increase, whatever he comes out with, will not be even close to what he proposed before," said Senate President Richard J. Codey (D., Essex).

At stake, according to Corzine, are federal dollars for the tunnel and money for the state's Transportation Trust Fund, which is expected to run dry in 2011. He has said the state must show it can match funding to get federal support for the multibillion-dollar rail plan.

"Transportation funding is probably the top issue" of the fall, said Assembly Speaker Joseph J. Roberts Jr. (D., Camden).

Strengthening ethics rules and cutting costs for the popular NJ STARS college-scholarship program, in part by tightening entry requirements, also are expected to be priorities.

Environmentalists plan to push for a surcharge on water use to pay for open-space preservation. And while its approval is not needed, the Legislature will keep an eye on the proposed conversion of insurance giant Horizon Blue Cross-Blue Shield to a for-profit company.

Assembly work will resume Sept. 15, when committees return. The Senate will reconvene on Oct. 2.

Neither chamber has met since June 23, when the Legislature approved a $32.9 billion budget that cut state spending but did not address transportation funding.

The spending reduction, pushed by Corzine, came in response to public outcry when he proposed an 800 percent toll increase over 15 years. The money would have paid for decades of transportation plans and halved the state's $32 billion debt, Corzine said, but residents said he should cut government instead.

Under the new plan, increased revenue is expected to go only toward transportation, a move that would keep the price down for drivers.

Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D., Union) predicted that tolls would rise 25 percent to 50 percent "tops" on the New Jersey Turnpike and Garden State Parkway to pay for projects on those roads.

Lawmakers would then have to find ways to pay for other transportation needs. Democratic lawmakers and other groups have floated ideas including for-fee highway "express" lanes, privately operated truck and bus lanes, tolls on I-78 and I-80, and toll increases elsewhere.

Assemblyman John Wisniewski (D., Middlesex), chairman of the Assembly Transportation Committee, proposed raising the gas tax 18 cents a gallon over three years, but many lawmakers pushed back as fuel prices soared.

Wisniewski argued that raising the gas tax would ensure that people who used the roads paid for repairs. He also said a toll hike would disproportionately burden those who live near toll roads in central and northeast New Jersey.

"If we as a society and as a state agree that we need to fund transportation, and we agree that the only real way to do that is by raising the money, then we have to decide what's the fairest way," Wisniewski said.

Republicans have railed against any toll or tax increase, saying New Jersey's budget contains enough money to cover state needs.

Senate Minority Leader Thomas Kean Jr. (R., Union) pointed to his party's early summer proposal to cut several programs - including aid to "distressed" cities and urban schools - and to shift the money to transportation.

Corzine has dismissed the GOP ideas as "make-believe math."

Ethics.

Roberts said he expected lawmakers to return to their pledge to toughen ethics laws, although he would not discuss specific plans.

"We're going to confront it and make it a priority," he said.

Roberts and Codey promised in January to strengthen rules against "pay-to-play" and "wheeling." Pay-to-play describes the practice of rewarding political donors with government contracts; critics of wheeling say it lets political donors dodge contribution limits by cycling money through party committees.

"We'll see what we can agree on," Codey said.

Kean said Republicans, who have campaigned for an ethics overhaul for years, were willing to work with Democrats on the issue.

"I just hope it's not an election-year, or leading-up-to-an-election-year, gimmick, but it's true reform," Kean said.

Corzine and the Assembly are up for election in 2009.

STARS.

Another winter issue likely to return is the fate of STARS scholarships, which have become more attractive and expensive than expected.

A report expected next month on ways to cut costs will recommend more stringent course requirements for high school students hoping to enter the program, said Assemblyman Patrick J. Diegnan Jr. (D., Middlesex), chairman of the Assembly Higher Education Committee and a member of the panel studying the issue.

Students who graduate in the top 20 percent of their class can attend a county college for free under the program. The study team has heard that some students take easy high school courses to stay eligible for the scholarships and then need remedial help in college, Diegnan said.

He said he hoped the new rules were in place by the time parents and students made decisions about college next year.

More tricky is how to revise the second part of the program, which covers tuition and fees at a four-year school for STARS scholarship recipients who keep a B average at a county college. The four-year colleges that take in STARS students have said the program costs them thousands of dollars per pupil because the state pays only county-college rates.

Diegnan said the committee was still debating how to resolve that issue.

STARS provides scholarships to more than 4,000 students at a projected cost this year of $17 million. Corzine had proposed that future scholars come from families with household incomes of no more than $100,000, but lawmakers rejected the idea.

Open space.

Environmentalists have pinned their hopes for open-space funding to a water tax they say would cost households an average of $32 a year and raise $150 million annually.

Health care.

Sen. Joseph F. Vitale (D., Middlesex) hopes to renew his push to expand health coverage in New Jersey, saying it could eventually replace an inefficient system that funnels hundreds of millions of dollars to hospitals for care of the uninsured.

But Codey and Roberts said New Jersey should wait to see how the federal government tackles health coverage after a new president takes office.

"I think you've got to wait two years," Codey said.