d murphy this is talented people on princeton television thanks again for watching my guest today is a repeat visitor to the show and one of my favorites in the state of new jersey her name's michelle skurka and she is the president c e o of the new jersey business and industry association and she's been there for a couple of years leading our way in new jersey michelle you know i was there when i was a for coming today and buster always tell us about what you've been up to and what you're doing over there because you're always the first one leading the state and doing so much for us as well new jersey business and industry association you know we like to say we're the biggest baddest boys in trenton and have been for one hundred five years representing our twenty thousand businesses across the state of new jersey you know that comprises over one point one million employees in the state of new jersey so we're very fortunate that we have a very big voice when we speak but you know that what makes it so important that when we exercise our voice we make sure that we do it in a way that you know brings respect for what we're talking about that we have our data when we're going to go an advocate for something that we make sure that is in the principles of our mission of advancing the cause for competitive business climate in the state of new jersey will must be such a challenge it is tough right he's in it you know what i always love by starting and saying i'm a jersey girl and i love the state of new jersey and why you know born and raised here i've been here my whole career save a couple years that i had to live in pennsylvania for my two wish it was school now ok so i got a little break for that but i came back immediately  and i've raised my family here and i'd like to see my family stay here and raise their family here but you know what my daughter is now an out migration statistic as of two weeks ago and she's no join the ranks of the number one largest group of out my graders in the state of new jersey and that's the millennia less so and that's because of affordability cine let's talk about yeah i was going to say i'm exactly like you a jersey girl i raised my family here for just a small brief time when my husband was transferred out and back they go we go back and i will never let it leave my soul so i'm  come back to talk about why they leave and you would think that you know that's the big group you're concerned about or we are concerned about them but what we found in our study is the number one largest group about my graders are aged eighteen to thirty four and if you think about for a moment that we have the number one k twelve education system in the country and we're willing to pay a premium absolutely and we're willing to pay a premium for that fire property tax our property taxes are high but we say but you know what we're going to pay for excellent education for our students now thin exactly exactly so number one their future workforce the talent leaving the state of new jersey no good our colleges we don't we're lacking capacity right now in our colleges meaning we don't have enough seats for all the students would be eligible to attend  higher institutions so by default we start to cause some of them to leave because we just don't have a seat for the right year now so you know it was back to school in september and all these statistics about you know kids going off to college more than fifty percent of new jersey freshman left the state to go to college and the majority of those went right to pennsylvania where canceled leave the cost of tuition for out of state is on par with in state new jersey so number one lack of capacity in higher ed number two cost of our education we need a higher ed strong the state of new jersey to attract and keep our talent here so that way they graduate from our schools and they come in they become the pipeline for our employees so how do you where do you start with just what are you going to do how do you say where do you begin because we  is a huge problem well on the higher end side and very very happy to say that b i a has for years been a facilitator of workforce development so we have great partnerships where we bring together academia at all levels of education whether it be twelve career in technical education community college for your institution we bring them together with our businesses and with government to talk about how can we create you know the pathway for students to get their way right into our jobs so we're really really wor saw the way that you were speaking with academia and all levels and so on so i know this is a priority and i'm so glad that you're bringing this on because you're right now how do you make it affordable and back up so that all of the old the strategies work out ye daughter's great example she went to college outside the state that's because she wanted a different experience sorry so she came back but when she looked at affordability in terms of living it was more affordable for her to go over to pennsylvania right get an apartment over there do her graduate work over there and now chances are she's going to stay there because they don't want you going over to philly and getting yourself settle with your graduate work you know she's not going back to new jersey and this is what we see time again so affordability is all about the cost of living in the state of new jersey i think this issue resonates with everybody this isn't just a business issue this is an issue for every resident every taxpayer and i'm michelle the taxpayer you're gini the taxpayer yes regardless of the fact i represent twenty thousand businesses right so i heard a great story last  week i was doing an event up in north jersey and i was talking i was like talk to people to get like what's going on in the community so we were talking about the fact that we're willing to pay a premium but not a super premium and that we're at the tipping point if not have exceeded the tipping point of what we're willing to pay to get good service and stay in new jersey so gentleman share with me that in his community suburban north jersey community and his community once the property taxes tip twenty thousand they can't sell their house so it is like this buzz in the community that when your property taxes are about nineteen you've got put your house on the market and that's it people go this is how we're thinking and that's not i mean a side away is that a way for us to live and i don't know but i do have to say the no a lot of the viewers out there are going to say i didn't think of that and that's what is is a consideration that's true so then how do we go from there how do we change then what what about like the perception of new jersey like you know you and i if they were jersey girls that we just get it we are in it all over it along with our other fellow new jersey lovers or everybody else out there would never think of us as having such an awesome educational system i mean they think new jersey is just not so how when you were moving around the state do you feel the love from all the people in the mass exodus thing the huge problem the limb eales everything else but where you know where's the love and joy what are you hearing from people out there who are saying i'm staying i don't care what well so this is the weird kind of disconnect in a way because we really do have a top talent workforce the issues we don't have enough of them it's a great statistic and you know i love my numbers and i'm a great statistic is we graduated i guess about two years ago and nine hundred ph d s in new jersey and that's phenomenal and that again like top on  life sciences so we have a demand that could command two hundred fifty thousand jobs we need to create the pipeline for that right so again we come back and we say well you know how do we do that we talk about the workforce develop but again this whole ford ability factor we need to step back and we need to start talking about how do we restart how to get some real true tax reform in the state of new jersey to drive down the cost of living in the state of new jersey right and you know it starts in our government our our our general our general funds of the budget that we fund all of the services for for our state you know over the last decade has increased less two decades is increased exponentially so we're at about thirty three billion give or take and that's because over all those years we've found new ways to spend money  that's fine if we have the money to spend if you take the out migration and what we've what we've lost in terms of money leaving the state for example in the last decade we lost eighteen billion dollars and in just a gross income that's nat's right now if you think about that that's money we're not taxing into the general fund that left the state of the state where to go people leaving those doing their job is that they moved somewhere else and so therefore they're taxed on their income we're not taxed on their incomes right upon the state you know somewhere else not here so we took a quick look and we said well what does it mean to new jersey's economy if in twenty thirteen and twenty thirteen we lost three billion dollars of adjusted gross income to out migration that was the net impact to new jersey regardless of who then the three billion dollars head so we couldn't tax that so we said you know if we just kept even twenty percent of the people who are out migrated who are forty five years and older in the state of new jersey what would that mean to new jersey today you know to mean we would have kept a half a billion dollars of adjusted gross income five hundred million dollars that we could tax to the general fund right in number one and number two we found that the economic activity surrounding that group of people twenty percent to forty five and over would equal three hundred fifty million dollars it sounds like a no brainer yeah yeah now of course i'm talking about data when you put things into practicality but you know there are some signals here number one signal we've got data tell this people are leaving and continue to leave right  know everywhere i go every day whether it's at the family picnic whether it's at the shore at the lovely jersey shore ok about the best or whether you know among my business community every day someone tells me that they are planning their exit from the state of new jersey and why a state tax and the fact that we tax pension and retirement income and where they go they go to states that have more favorable tax provisions so that it costs them less to be there right no brainer right right and they get that for the wealth managers and everything to so you know you're such a positive person and whatever you are and you are and so when you're like when you're out there trying to find these different options to actually make a difference and you know you're looking at the stats and you can see that even if you do x amount you're still going to accomplish that but just to get the strategy down can you give everybody a feel for the businesses that are coming in to new jersey because we hear a lot about it but we don't hear from you you know i mean i want to hear from you for people who are watching what's going on your side when they're talking about their or businesses coming in it should be a positive it is absolutely so you know the incentive program that's in place right now the grow new jersey grounds has attracted a lot of business is what is our jersey basically it is an incentive it's tax credits so if you come in first of all it's tax credits that government is promising to give you if you deliver on shops so you have to create a certain number of jobs and in exchange for creating those jobs government will give you a tax credit on those jobs great so pretty much helps your bottom line to get you going in the state of new jersey now the naysayers will say you know this is corporate handouts no it's not all these other states particularly in new york who is  offering business incentives that are like fifty times ours i see it on t v every day you see the commercials absolutely for us to stay competitive we must provide some type of incentive to kind of even even the playing field so basically we're a high cost state but you know we say to a company we're high cost state for a reason you get a lot of services for your premium we have the best workforce or you know you've got the best scientists doctors we've got every exactly yes so what we're going to do that was we're going to mitigate your bill on the way and give you some tax credits to get you your company up and running so as a result of that there have been oh my gosh thousands and thousands multiples of thousands of jobs have been created in new jersey or promise to be created there in the development phase and if you come in today and you're going to build a new  build a new company a bigger company a corporate headquarters that takes a few years obvious sure but you know the naysayers want to they want to say we're giving away this money and that we've already given away no we've pledged future dollars and those jobs must be created first it's totally perfect it will keep the millennial zonal keep more scientists coming through and everything else that we need but also you know invest in yourself don't expect anyone else to their residence everybody should be behind that because we're actually investing in our own future we're investing in giving the ability to companies to give it back really we're investing in job creation and the first and foremost the most important thing is a job right nobody survives without a job right so if we can't create jobs then we can't keep millennia old or right you know just ok world class education k twelve hands down more class education but think about yet jersey shore tourism one of our largest industries and stay in new jersey ok tourism and the jersey shore you know we are equal distance to new york to philadelphia so to metropolitan cities right we're also equal distance along the northeast corridor and if you think about we have we have three of the busiest train stations of the northeast corridor all within our little state  k so we have all this and then think about a highway system very well the port we are the third largest port in the world so now you come into the port we have a great distribution center through through our transportation infrastructure to get goods and services around you know where the middle the northeast corridor i mean these are all the great things that make new jersey a success and that's why we're willing to pay a premium but you know what again that super premium puts us makes us less competitive or not competitive gets us out and people start looking for other opportunities in other places we can't let that happen we can't lose our edge they're going to get as they to my awesome viewers here a few feeble shell is she into it or whether you like go watch you go like thank god you're doing this because you are seriously so into it and everything you're talking about the passion that you have for helping everybody to make this right just the love of new jersey oh it's so exciting and i really want you to know we all appreciate it because i mean for people other don't know you they need to see that this is launched on the show because this is our leader here tells about opportunity in new jersey well this is great because you know one when someone has passion the reason you have to ignite it in other people new jersey is about igniting passion other people for white so important keep new jersey affor opportunity jersey we have seventeen board members who are other business associations from across the whole state whether they be chambers of commerce or they represent a particular trade association that supports a certain industry and right now this is like an unprecedented coalition if you will succumb together on the issue of making new jersey affordable not just for new jersey business owners for every resident of the state of new jersey great and we're looking forward to the idea is to educate so we want to educate the new the taxpayer you and me you know right now you're either educated every time you come on the show i'm learning everything in a half hour or so we want to educate the new jersey taxpayer around the economic impact what it means to their wallet when we passed policy in trenton because you know a lot of the policy on its face it looks and sounds good well that sounds good fifteen elemental which sounds good how can i possibly sit and say i don't want people  the cost of all the goods and services are going to rise with it and i've done no good for that person to a player either right so instead i want to see investment in workforce development so that their skills get built up so that they earn fifteen dollars even when i was there in the in the employer why i have to say it honestly there you could put a company out of business going to fifteen dollars an hour with them with the wrong people that are required to get that and without and without knowing a huff and without knowing all the economic opportunities about educating people on all the things that aren't the nice sound bite and what's very difficult is that it's like a retail sales pitch because think about this you know the common every day new jersey resident they get up every day maybe put the kids on the bus rush to work do their job  get the kids from the bus do the homework make the dinner take care of the family do the laundry whatever is go to bed get up do it the next day right right so we're like on a hamster wheel i know by my life sam so we'll how do i take those it's my job to understand these issues because that's what i spend my full time job doing however everybody else is off doing all that other work they don't have time for this and this is a complex issue complex and it's true so we need to break it down into very simple digestible understandable  pieces of information for people to be educated on the economic impact and then we need to deliver it in a way say that it's meaningful to them so what i mean by that you want to talk to a business owner it's very different if they understand that oh my god that could cost me jobs in my company or i have to raise my prices but when i talk to the soccer mom i've got the soccer moms attention for thirty seconds because she's really busy right but when i say to soccer mom your daughter's not going to college in new jersey i've got her attention   bring it back to us completely understandably and you're looking out for both sides of the fence yes well i want to so i want to say to anybody who's who's watching go onto opportunity n g a dot org opportunity n j dot org sign up for our newsletter this is very important twenty seventeen is a pivotal year for the state of new jersey why do i say that not only do we have a governor's race so new governor because our governor has terms up term limits he's done ok new governor and it's going to be an interesting race with a lot of people already kind of saying i'm stepping up and and they've all got ideas and we need to educate everyone on what those ideas are so new governor the whole legislature is up as well every every seat of a policymaker in the state new jersey is on the ballot next year but it's not only about voting for people next year we're looking at the real possibility of two ballot questions that could significantly impact the economy in the state of new jersey number one fifteen dollar minimum wage because right now that's making its way to be on the ballot next year so again we need to and we can talk all the time because it's a whole half hour to talk about that economic impact but on opportunity n j dot org you can learn all about it coming get that newsletter second is the constitutional amendment to fund the public pension as a super priority over everything else that means we're going to we're going to fund that pension first out of the general fund in every budget year before we look at public health safety welfare everything else  say it's a super priority because it gets funded per a constitutional mandate to fund it everything else we fund because it's significantly important right so guess what quarterly you've got your school funding bill over here and you've got your pension payment over here constitution says pay this first who's losing now it is just incredible and you are going to come back on and talk about this so we can understand even more what other things would you like to talk about before the in the show your because it's just like i can't even we have to know and we you know we have said we the taxpayers we owe the obligation for that pension hundred percent but doing it through a constitutional amendment is what i'm thinking that is just not the way it's not the way to do it we need to our policymakers need to sit down with all of us with all the stakeholders community groups business groups everybody and talk about you know how do we find our way through these complex issues how do we find comprehensive solutions that are above just a sound and that are above looking at things in a silo right you know when you talk about something right here in the moment you need to kind of ask the question what's the economic impact on these three other factors over here right and sometimes that policy is very difficult and it's you know it's easy to look at things in a simple way and make it simplify it but then you don't know what the unintended consequences are completely prove you can you tell us to share with everybody a little bit about your history but you have a couple minutes left and i want them to understand that you're a lawyer and your past so that they'll understand buy you you war for what you are you know what you're doing now what i'm sure you'll be doing in the future well i'm an attorney by trade so and you know what once an attorney i was an attorney and you know actually my favorite part of being an attorney my entire career was advocating and so it as a young lawyer i did litigation and on business issues employment and business law but that my favorite thing for me was always advocacy and consensus building so i'd always say to a client you know if we could let's let's mediate let's sit let's talk about how there's a win win in this situation practice i worked for aaa mid atlantic for quite a few years and i was their senior legal counsel and did a lot of work around employee issues there and built their traffic safety foundation which i'm very proud of that is still in existence today thank you as well that we have for a small business members so you know that twenty thousand businesses eighty percent of them are twenty five employees or less really and it's and you know if that's the fabric of new jersey and you know main street drives new jersey we all think about the big corporations but think about main street you know main streets everywhere in new jersey so we put together our member action center and this is caught like the nine one one hotline when a company a small employer is in the middle of some issue that you know they don't have an h r professional they don't have a risk manager they don't have a compliance officer when they go oh my god what do i do right i call b i i called member action center and in real time we can help you out or we can connect you with someone who can help you out as part of that we have a legal line so you get thirty minutes of free consultation on a legal issue in the moments it's not meant to be you are retained lawyer right words the night of the moment they can help you through right and h r issue you know god forbid a secretary comes in i feel like i was just mistreated by someone and you say they're gone my god what i do with this so it will get you things going on so you know let me take a minutes a plug new jersey business magazine because this is you know the usa one time when print media is almost like a dinosaur when you say that right new jersey business is such a relevant business periodical for business owners and c e o s and even employees to read because you know we have all the hot trends things going on as well as up to date news and then we have n j b c which is our new jersey business today that's pretty much taking this and put it into a daily a news service that our members can receive that to receive every day four o'clock keeping them you know up and to know what's going on business world love it all right well all i can say is thank you again soledad and i can't believe it's been two years and i'm think it's so great that you are doing what you're doing to save the jersey leading us all