LEGISLATIVE REPORT
What’s next for AC?
In any normal year, conversations among NJ
State PBA members regarding Atlantic City would
focus on conventions and weekend trips for
some good times. But 2016 is anything but a normal year, and the State PBA has found a new
focus when thinking about Atlantic City. The new
normal for Atlantic City, PBA Local 24 and the
ROB NIXON entire state is whether ego and personal interest
can get checked at the door in order to prevent
the city from falling into bankruptcy.
Anyone not following the Atlantic City story doesn’t need to
do anything but walk down the Boardwalk to catch up on the
problem. The closure of four casinos, including the failed Revel,
has dramatically reduced the property tax revenue that the city
built its budget on and cut into the casino revenue that the
state for years so eagerly took for purposes outside of the city.
The problem in Atlantic City isn’t mismanagement, so much as
it is economic catastrophe.
But, as with every crisis, there are some who are eager to find
a scapegoat for problems, seen and unforeseen. The scapegoat
of the AC saga for many in power, and in the media, has been
Mayor Donald Guardian and the city’s employees. Any reasonable person would understand that blaming the employees for
the revenue lost when the casinos closed is the same as
blaming the family for the father or mother who lost their jobs
when the market collapsed and found it hard to pay the bills
without a weekly paycheck.
But if you take the comparison further, the AC situation gets
more frustrating. Imagine the homeowner who has slashed his
expenses – as ordered by the bank – and has never missed a
mortgage payment, only to have the bank start foreclosure
before default even though the bank’s bad decisions led to the
crash that cost the worker his job. That is the situation in
Atlantic City in a nutshell.
No amount of second-guessing about bad management
from the state in the city, or poor investments in casinos or New
Jersey allowing casino funds to be funneled outside AC can fill
the gap that exists now. The city and state, therefore, have a few
choices to right the ship: They can let the state takeover AC
(which the PBA, the city, local leaders and State Assembly
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MAY 2016
Speaker Prieto oppose). Or they can
compromise to ensure that every
option is pursued fairly to help the
city close the gap. Or the City can go
bankrupt. Time and cash flow, or lack thereof, do not allow for
delay much longer.
The NJ State PBA, in conjunction with Speaker Prieto and
Republican Assemblyman Chris Brown (Atlantic County), have
been working closely with a variety of bi-partisan supporters to
get past the blame game and figure out a solution before it’s too
late. Members of Atlantic City Local 24 have gone above and
beyond to do their part in the attempt to offer and find solutions. Working alongside the mayor and a state-appointed
financial monitor, Local 24 has done everything asked of its
members on givebacks, negotiations, restructuring and
staffing. And during that time, crime, Internal Affairs complaints and use of force are all down.
The professionalism and dedication of the men and women
of Atlantic City Local 24 has not gone unrecognized, and the
numbers disprove any suggestion that the police department
is somehow a problem that only a complete state takeover of
collective bargaining and employment rights can resolve. For
its recognition of the seriousness of the financial crisis and their
repeated agreement to be part of the solution, the State PBA
has called on the governor and the NJ State Legislature to
exempt the police department from any elimination of collective bargaining rights that were proposed in the original
takeover bill.
The State PBA has made itself clear in Trenton. Atlantic City
Local 24 worked hand-in-hand with the city and state before
the crisis started. The Local members have been part of the
solution. That much must be recognized in any legislation governing the future of the city.
But what happens next will depend on whether regional priorities and political goals are set aside so that a meaningful
solution to address the problem can be reached without punishing those who have done everything right up to now. The
city may only have a few weeks before the cash runs out. But
that is an eternity in Trenton time. Finding a rational middle
ground isn’t impossible. d