Joining NJTV News Anchor Mary Alice Williams by Skype is Atlantic City Mayor Don Guardian.
Williams: Senate President Steve Sweeney suggests you’re not serious about getting Atlantic City’s finances in order.
Guardian: I think that’s an unfair statement. We’ve had a chance to lay out benchmarks to reduce costs in every department. We’ve been as creative as we can. We’re looking at best practices of other cities but we’re certainly, in addition to that, need some state aid and we certainly need a redirection of casino funds.
Williams: Sweeney said today that your city needs $96 million from the state and that the state doesn’t have it. What’s your response?
Guardian: Yeah, I’m sorry that the state doesn’t have the funds. It would be nice if we could get that from the state but I think somewhere between $40 and $60 million would be appropriate for the state redirected funds from the casinos and bringing the budget down to about $210 million this year as we work to $190 or $200 million the following year. I think that is very reasonable, realistic and what other cities are doing in New Jersey.
Williams: You’re now in court trying to access $33 million in aid approved by a state monitor in the Legislature but then vetoed by Gov. Christie. Can a court force the governor to sign legislation?
Guardian: Well we really were dragged into court because the state of New Jersey — who told us when to make our payments who to make them to and how much to make them for — sued us because we were late on our school payments. So they sued us and asked the judge to force us to make all of the payments that are due now until June 30 and the judge ruled that no, that the state shouldn’t do that. We have a good working relationship with our school board. We made the April payment yesterday for a total of $8.5 million which is what they receive on a monthly basis that gets them through the end of May and that he’s certainly going to monitor to make sure that we’re doing that but as part of the court case.
Williams: He’s scheduled a court hearing in May, on May 15, to make sure that you’ve got the payment for the schools. How are you going to get that money?
Guardian: We’re going to be bringing in between $40 and $60 million in taxes alone for the second quarter.
Williams: You want the court to appoint a special master to ensure the department of local government services provides the aid you need and bars the state from any adverse action. What adverse action are you concerned about?
Guardian: Holding the $33.5 million, spending a year negotiating a deal with Borgata for the tax appeals and refusing to give us any information on what happened even though they turned the mess over to us and giving us information that the governor spent $2.6 million on with a special emergency manager and Ernst and Young and not being able to get the data that they’ve collected that’s supposed to help up as a city move forward.
Williams: And finally you’ve got public workers who have put off a paycheck for 28 days. Are you going to have the money to pay them?
Guardian: Yeah, of course. There’s no problem with that. They’ll be paid, I think it’s on May 2 or May 4. It’s a 28-day rather than a 14-day and we’re certainly appreciative. It’s all the unions working together and as we said regularly it’s collective bargaining agreements that are helping us to save money in the city. It’s not the enemy. They’re working together with us to try and solve our problem and that’s why we’re so against the concept of the senator’s bill in doing away with collective bargaining. It’s not fair to working men and women.
Related: Prieto, Sweeney Discuss AC’s Future with No Agreement