Lt. Gov. Discusses Small Business, Taxes, Education During Westfield Meetings

Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno brought her listening tour of state municipalities to Westfield Wednesday, holding closed-door briefings with municipal leaders, non-profit officials and the business community.

Guadagno is criss-crossing the state on behalf of Gov. Chris Christie, meeting with local leaders to hear concerns and share information from Trenton. Interviews with those who met with Guadagno today said she listened intently to all comments and shared plans and proposals from the Christie administration.

"I got the impression of a real willingness to listen and really start to address what is reasonable," said Anna Mastroianni, the owner of Sole who attended the small business roundtable.

The Westfield contingent of municipal and business leaders shared their views on the property tax cap, education funding, small-business issues, downtown promotion and state funding. According to participants, Guadagno took notes throughout the meetings and seemed receptive to the suggestions, particularly those relating to small business and pledged to remain accessible going forward.

In an interview with Patch following her Westfield meetings, Guadagno said the Governor has sent her on a statewide mission to gather  information from local leaders while also touting the work of the regulatory-reform task force she chaired that among other topics, focused on streamlining the process for securing business permits. She said she also touted the new economic development program set up in her office to consolidate business start-up programs.

"I wanted to let them know that Trenton is coming to them," she said.

Guadagno said property taxes and Christie's proposed toolkit of property-tax-reform legislation  topped the list for many of the municipal officials she spoke to—here and in her other meetings around the state. Her first meeting of the day included Mayor Andy Skibitsky, Town Administrator Jim Gildea and four members of the Town Council, regarding municipal government issues. Guadagno said she keeps hearing support for the 2 percent property-tax cap and a desire to see the toolkit pass, including legislation regarding arbitration reform, health care and pension reform and new management tools for local government. The Town Council has endorsed passage of the toolkit.

Councilman Keith Loughlin, who was part of the local government meeting, said town officials stressed the work Westfield has been doing in streamlining municipal operations and reduce taxes in recent years. He said these issues included the one-year salary freezes agreed to by the unions representing public-works employees and firefighters, reducing the town workforce through attrition and combining municipal departments.

"She complimented us on several of our best practices in shrinking the size of the town government," Loughlin said.

In addition to talking about what Westfield has done, Loughlin said council members made several requests, discussing the toolkit and town projects in need of state funding. He said the Council touched on economic development and job growth and the need to reduce regulations and taxes on a state level to spur growth. He said the council members briefed Guadagno on Westfield's bustling  downtown, which has a vacancy rate lower than the state average.

Loughlin said Guadagno seemed supportive of Westfield and wanted to tout the town's actions as an example on a statewide level. "She said when she goes around the state she points to Westfield as an example of how to get things done," he said. "Westfield is a model town."

Guadagno herself echoed those sentiments, citing programs such as the Downtown Westfield Corporation's weekly summer jazz concerts, promotion activities and business community's collaborative spirit as positive aspects of the town that can be an example for communities statewide.

"Westfield has a well-organized economic development program that helps attract business," Guadagno said.

During a meeting with civic leaders, which included representatives of the Westfield YMCA, the Westfield Symphony Orchestra and the Westfield Community Center, Board of Education President Julia Walker used the time to raise concerns with the lieutenant governor about the impact of the governor's decision to cut state aid to school districts and education funding issues going forward.

Walker highlighted her concerns in long-term and short-term funding for education. She said short-term concerns include the recently approved federal funds for teacher hiring and how they will be allocated to local school districts. She said she is looking for assurances that suburban school districts will get a fair share of the money. Walker added that Guadagno said the issue is still being worked out in Trenton and that she would take note of the Westfield school system's concerns on funding allocation.

Walker also said she informed Guadagno about concerns she and other education leaders have had on how Westfield and other suburban districts have been treated by the Christie Administration in terms of funding. In March, the governor cut Westfield's state education aid by $4.22 million – or 90.4-percent. The cuts included 59 districts statewide losing 100 percent of state aid; Westfield laid off 33 employees and cut a variety of programs, including purchasing library books and new computers.

Walker, the BOE finance committee chairwoman, said she told Guadagno about the district's fears that its top-tier test scores and high college acceptance rate could suffer as a result of the governor's budget cuts. "We are successful and being punished," Walker said.

Walker also said she addressed more of the long-term funding issues, including Westfield receiving $72 per student from the state while urban districts such as Plainfield receives thousands of dollars per student from the state. Walker said she also touched on a state review process for local school districts, which she described as being too frequent and onerous on the local districts.

Walker said Guadagno said she knew the local districts were struggling with the education cuts and said the state will be addressing the issue going forward. During the interview with Patch, Guadagno said she wanted local schools to know that the toolkit would help the school systems going forward with freeing up money.

Walker said the civic leaders meeting also touched on arts and volunteerism issues, which are part of Guadagno's domain in her other role as secretary of state. The civic leaders meeting included Walker, WCC Executive Director Thelma Smith, WSO Executive Director Linda Doyle, Westfield Soccer Association president Brian Moynihan, Rescue Squad president Reid Edles and former Councilman Sal Caruana.

DWC Executive Director Sherry Cronin, who attended the business roundtable, said Guadagno wanted to hear the concerns particularly in the areas of regulatory reform and health care. In assembling the round table with the Chamber of Commerce, Cronin said they were aiming for a cross section of business owners representing new and older businesses, along with chains and small businesses. In addition to Mastroianni, the business roundtable including Jack Kasich, the owner of Robert Treat Deli, Ron Tuchman, the owner of Thinka Dinka and Kirk Ruoff, the owner of the soon-to-open Turning Point restaurant.

Guadagno said the meetings will be continuing in communities around the state and will help shape policies in the governor's office. She said she intends to continue the meetings and return to Westfield in the future as part of the outreach. She said she and Christie have assigned aides in their offices to be municipal liaisons going forward to increase communication.

Guadagno, a former town commissioner in Monmouth Beach, said her own experiences in local government have shaped the desire to engage in the municipal outreach.

"Our administration has been trying to reach out," she said.