♪♪ >> From NJ PBS Studios, this is "NJ Spotlight News" with Briana Vannozzi.

>> Hello, and thanks for joining us tonight.

I'm Joanna Gagis.

Briana Vannozzi is off.

Coming up, are businesses scoring a win from the World Cup?

We'll look at the economic impact.

Plus, it's something we all need but many of us never get enough of, sleep.

One expert explains how going to bed on time can impact your life expectancy.

But first, we talked with the Republican Senate Budget Officer, Declan O'Scanlon, about why the GOP is calling foul on some of the governor's proposed budget cuts.

That's next.

Funding for NJ Spotlight News provided by the members of the New Jersey Education Association and RWJBarnabas Health.

Learn more at rwjbh.org.

The governor and legislature have until June 30th to approve and pass a budget for the next fiscal year, according to the state constitution.

It's a process that's historically been negotiated behind closed doors without much transparency.

Governor Sherrill promised to be more open in her approach, but with just a week to go, how do Republicans see it playing out so far?

I'm joined by the Republican budget officer, Senator Declan O'Scanlon, who's here as part of our Under the Dome series.

Senator, thank you so much for being with us.

Great to have you.

We are one week and one day away from the deadline to have an approved, balanced budget.

When I spoke to you in March, right after the governor initially laid out her budget address, you said that you liked some of the rhetoric that she had included in her speech, but you want to see a fiscally responsible, you know, fiscally, fiscal, excuse me, you want to see a budget that reflects fiscal responsibility.

What do you see right now that you like, that you don't like?

Well, we haven't seen a lot more detail, actually.

That's a big problem, is that one of the things she also promised was more transparency and a process that would be more open to the public, more open to you and the press, and more open to we legislators who have to vote on it.

None of that's happened.

It's not likely that we'll see a budget before Friday and then vote on it on Monday, maybe Tuesday.

But then that belies her claim to want to have more transparency and not have a last minute budget that people are voting on that nobody knows what's in it.

That is exactly where we're headed again, and that's very disappointing.

We will likely see a rebuilding in of a batch of pork with no details about it, that we won't, we probably won't see those details till late July or August, just like last year.

So unfortunately, with all the rhetoric and the claim to want to be more responsible and transparent, none of that seems to be materializing.

That's very, very disappointing.

We also... How much of that, Senator?

Let me ask you, how much of that do you think is because of the process between the legislature and the governor's office?

Do you hold the governor responsible for that?

Do you hold the legislature responsible for that?

I hold everyone responsible for that, but the governor asked for the executive's job.

The governor has tremendous power, the most powerful governorship in the country.

She could use that leverage and insist on transparency, lay out deadlines-- that all could easily have been done-- and say, "If I don't get what I want, I'm lining out specific pork items for leadership and other folks."

So that all could have happened.

-None of that happened.

-Let me... -So, yeah, I do hold the governor responsible for that.

-Let me... I want to ask you this, because I know that you and Senate Republican Leader Anthony Bucco have been critical about some of the cuts to nonprofits that you say are essential.

Meals on Wheels, Adler Aphasia Center, there's a Tourette's program, several nonprofits that have seen cuts in the hundreds of thousands.

You've long talked about the structural deficit through the Murphy administration, really, but I'm surprised that this isn't something you are behind to see some of these cuts being made.

Well, no, I'm for making cuts to blatant pork items.

I'm not for making cuts to essential services.

Those are the first things that we should be funding, not the last things we should be funding, and certainly not the first things to be cut.

There's hundreds of millions of dollars of money doled out to random municipalities, random counties that happen to be politically connected for things like sports stadiums and turf fields.

All of that should be cut, and we should be funding things like helping people with Tourette's, the developmentally disabled battered women.

Those are the things that have been cut while we're gonna see restorations of turf fields and sports stadiums and garbage like that.

Huge, huge distinction.

So philosophically I'm perfectly comfortable with where Republicans are here.

We're advocating for those broad based things that help these people truly need.

We are against blatant pork items that go to the politically connected for things that shouldn't be funded by the state.

They should be funded locally, or if they're going to be, every single municipality should have a shot at them.

So I am very comfortable.

And by the way, we've provided billions of redirections and cuts and restraints that have been ignored by the previous administration.

And now this administration that could help us balance our budget.

That all should be happening during the month of August.

You've called for the end of what you say are unjustified special grants to schools, to municipalities.

Is that what you're talking about, what you just explained now?

That's part of it, yes.

If, well, first off, we have random cuts to school districts, the aid that they're supposed to be getting, hundreds of them throughout the state.

It's absolutely criminal that that's happening.

These districts that suffered dramatic cuts during the Murphy administration, when they were told, "We have to slavishly follow a ridiculous, outdated, unsustainable school funding formula."

As soon as those same districts were due increases in aid, all of a sudden, we don't have to follow the funding formula anymore.

We can make random cuts.

These are things that should have been corrected in this budget.

We showed the administration how to do it and how to fund it.

None of that happened.

But yes, you're right.

Those are the things that we're talking about.

- Many of your colleagues have come on talking and asking for reforms to the school funding formula.

I've heard it from Democrats as well, that they acknowledge that needs to change.

Have you made any headway?

Are there any conversations happening behind the scenes that we're not aware of to that end?

- None that we are aware of.

And I doubt it.

They've kicked the can down the road for so many years on school funding and really turned it into a mess.

We had, under the Murphy administration, had we taken action five, six, seven years ago, it would have been easy to fix the school funding formula and, by the way, dramatically reduce our deficit, our structural deficit.

None of that happened.

And none of the folks in the legislature that could have stood up and said, they could have built a coalition with Republicans.

We need to fix this.

And we need to fix it now when we have this breathing room.

They could have done that.

They all took a pass.

And now- To be fair, I've never heard anyone say that it would be easy on either side to fix.

This is a complicated formula.

Actually, no, no.

You've heard me.

Hold on, Joanna.

Hold on.

I've got to take issue with that.

Had we done it six, seven years ago, it would have been easy.

And I've been saying it throughout that time.

Had we taken action earlier, most of these problems, the earlier you address them, the easier it would be to address them.

What would be the easy fix?

The easy fix back then would have been to bend the curve of the increases in school funding.

We increased school funding under the Murphy administration by 50 percent, from $8 billion to $12 billion.

Had we only increased it by 40 percent, we could have saved that money.

We could have bent the curve.

We could have given a lot more money to school districts that deserved it under the formula, but not an obscene amount of money.

School districts like Newark have so much money right now, they're essentially setting it on fire.

These would have been easy fixes to make.

Newark would be thrilled today.

They'd be getting a lot more money than they were eight years ago, just not an obscene amount.

And we could have taken some of that money, redirected it to the districts that were suffering horrific cuts beyond fat into bone and muscle.

We could have fixed it.

And it would have been easy.

I completely stand by that.

Of course.

Opponents of what you're saying right now would say, look, schools were underfunded, districts were underfunded for years.

Governor Christie didn't roll out the school funding formula as dictated by law.

And so those districts had been underfunded, deserve that funding.

I'm sure we could continue on and on, but we are out of time.

But I do appreciate you coming on and talking about this.

Senator Declan O'Scanlon, Republican Budget Officer, thank you.

Thanks, Joanna.

Under the Dome is made possible in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people.

As budget deadlines bear down on state lawmakers, the business community is waiting to see what tax policies will be finalized in the budget and how it'll impact their bottom line.

And while they wait for those numbers, some businesses in North Jersey are seeing their bottom lines impacted by the World Cup matches being played in East Rutherford.

Michele Siekerka is president and CEO of the New Jersey Business and Industry Association, and she joins us now with more insight into all of it.

Michele, thank you so much for taking some time to talk to us.

There's plenty to talk about when it comes to the state budget.

We're going to get to that in a minute, but I want to start with the World Cup.

We are a couple games in now, home games here in New Jersey.

And I want to say, I want to ask you, do you have a sense of what impact there's been on the business community here in New Jersey?

Lots of speculation about how they would be impacted.

What do we know so far?

So I could tell you no hard data.

It really is anecdotal.

I can tell you that the hotels are now getting more bookings than they did weeks ago.

It looks like folks were definitely waiting to get closer to their ticket time to book their rooms because of pricing.

And we still got a ways to go on that.

I can also tell you that it depends on how businesses themselves are trying to take advantage of this opportunity.

We've heard from some local businesses that are getting a lot of attention, restaurants around the area of Karlstad, and particularly where they're doing some pre-gaming.

I'll tell you where the real energy is, is in the flag cities and the fan fests.

Thousands of people going out to the fan fests in flag cities and that's been a nice energy.

And the energy on social media is really driving a lot of momentum as well.

But in terms of bottom line dollars, you know, that's all yet to be seen.

We've seen some stories coming out of Boston in particular where there's bars and restaurants running out of beer.

The Scottish seem to really make their mark when they come and visit.

Have we seen any supply chain issues here in New Jersey?

Have the crowds exposed any challenges or made businesses have to kind of recalculate?

I think that the venues that were ready to host absolutely amped up their game to make sure they had plenty of supply.

I did hear that they were probably filling up the bars and the fluids behind the bars much quicker than they might have thought.

But we haven't heard that there's been a shortage or a run on beer.

I think as usual, our challenge has been, you know, kind of wait times with commuters.

Look, we are a unique venue here in New Jersey.

We're not in the middle of a city.

Very different than, you know, what they're experiencing perhaps in Philadelphia or even up in Boston.

We don't have that iconic one place American Dream is doing really well.

And all the activity around there with the Plaza de Football.

But we don't have like a Times Square where people are all congregating in one spot or the stairs of the Art Museum in Philly, where you see these teams and their fans having these amazing local experiences.

But the hype is good and the hype is real.

I just have to ask you, we're hearing reports of some of the hotels in the Meadowlands area increasing their prices like by hundreds of percentage points.

Is it a wise move for the business community to be inflating their costs?

Do you think that that contributed to folks not booking their hotels?

Or do you think they're kind of feeling it out?

Give us your take on it.

Yeah, I think that's why some folks waited and didn't book so well in advance because the prices were astronomical.

And what we saw is businesses took the cue when they weren't getting those pre-bookings and stepped back a bit and said, "All right, I think we need to rethink our game plan here."

And I think they got a little smarter about it.

So, you know, people think, "Oh, these tickets are very overpriced to get in.

So these people coming in have all this money, so they're going to pay whatever."

And I think then reality is setting in a bit, and I think we've had a little bit of settling off on that.

And like I said, those hotel bookings are now coming back up because I think the prices are adjusting to the demand of the All right, let's talk budget.

There's so much here.

When I spoke to you early on after the governor's budget address, you were optimistic, hopeful.

You said you felt like you could work with the administration.

But I know there are some things you've been fighting against, what was proposed even in that original budget.

Can we talk about the alternative business calculation and whether there's been any movement on where the governor has set out the deductions?

- Yeah, so we're not hearing a lot about movement on that particular tax.

To be honest with you, our concern is that the threshold is too low.

And I also wanna reiterate that both that and the net operating loss, both of those tax changes were done in a bipartisan manner to make New Jersey's tax climate more regionally competitive to how our surrounding states deal with those types of taxes.

So now to do an about face on that again, this is our consistent challenge in New Jersey.

We run on one set of rules and then we change the rules midstream for our businesses and businesses need predictability and certainty and clarity over the longterm in order to make good investments for the longterm, especially on tax policy.

We shouldn't be changing the game year over year, not good policy.

- Both of those deductions are set at one million.

What do you think is the appropriate number if that's too low?

- I mean, one million sweeps in small business.

Again, we're not the ones who thought that there was an issue with what was already a negotiated amount.

Let's leave it alone.

It was working.

We had bipartisan approval on the law as it stands now.

Let's leave that tax policy alone.

Let's move on to something else.

You know, the amount we're talking about here is something that we can find in other places, negligible in the big scheme of things.

Let's not sweep in these small businesses.

- I know you're also very critical of the Climate Superfund.

Explain, so this would be really a tax, a penalty on businesses that are involved in petroleum, right, that are, as the state says, found to have harmed the economy, excuse me, harmed the environment here in New Jersey.

You don't like this policy.

Why?

Well, this is, again, another example of businesses that played by the rules, and we change the game.

And then we go back and say, now we're going to go back and penalize you and assess you for things that you've done over decades, legally, with permits and licenses, especially when you're providing a product that is in a majority of the products and things that we use today.

And it's crazy for us to think that this is just going to be an impact on the refineries in New Jersey.

And in fact, let me just say, you know, years ago, we had many more refineries here in the state of New Jersey.

We had six, we're down to two.

We've lost them along the East Coast because of policies like this.

But this absolutely is going to have a reverberating effect all the way down to utility costs and the cost of fuel.

Let's not kid ourselves, as well as the cost of general products and services.

Those are real supply chain issues we should be paying attention to.

Michelle, should there be though any accountability from businesses that have contributed to poor air quality to poor environmental hazards in our state?

So let me just say that the air quality here in the state of New Jersey is the best that it could possibly be because of decades of good environmental policy and because of businesses that have played by the rules.

We have some of the strictest environmental air quality rules and regulations here in the state of New Jersey, and that's what's made the difference.

If you want to go back a few decades, I mean, our percentage of contribution to greenhouse gases is minimal, nascent at best.

What we're the victim of is downstream wind from Ohio, Pennsylvania.

And now we want to penalize yet again, our companies here in the state of New Jersey.

Bad policy, misplaced.

So no accountability that you think should be enacted for anyone who's, you said we have good air quality, but there are still companies that are contributing to pollution in the state.

No accountability on a financial scale for those companies.

What I'm saying is they are contributing according to the permits and regulations that are in place.

They are playing by the rules.

They cannot operate if they don't play by the rules.

And our regulations here in the state of New Jersey are some of the strictest nationally and internationally.

They're playing by the rules.

No reason to penalize them or assess them.

Thank you so much, Michelle Siekerka, President and CEO of the New Jersey Business and Industry Association.

Thank you.

Thanks so much.

About one-third of Americans don't get the recommended seven hours of sleep a night, according to the CDC.

And for many, the struggle isn't just getting to bed on time, it's sleeping well.

So how do you know when poor sleep is just a rough stretch or when it's something that needs medical attention?

I recently spoke with Dr.

Carol Ash, a pulmonologist at the DeBoerah Heart and Lung Center about these issues.

Dr.

Ash, thanks for talking to us today.

Let's be honest, many of us, maybe most of us don't get the right amount of sleep.

Can you just tell us what is the right number of hours that a person should get in a night?

- Well, Joanna, this is such a great topic because sleep is so critical for wellbeing and health.

And most of us need, it's a range, seven to nine, but most of us shouldn't be getting less than seven hours of sleep.

And unfortunately, for many of us, there's so many demands, people who have non-traditional work schedules that interfere with our ability to get the hours we need.

And also not just the amount in the hours, it's the timing of sleep that is critical as well.

- That timing, I wanna understand that better.

I've heard this reference to the shift worker, and I know there's some new data around, and research around the shift hour workers, which is really focused on when you're sleeping.

So let's start there.

What is a shift worker, and what kind of defines those hours of sleep?

- Well, traditionally, Joanna, we're meant to be awake during the day and sleep at night.

So typically anybody who is up working at night and anyone who's getting up at 4 a.m.

in the morning is technically considered a shift worker.

And that schedule, you know, I was in healthcare for many years and that's what we did, right?

Like first responders, the military, everyone in healthcare and lots of other individuals who that's normal for them.

But studies show it's not what we're designed to do.

So when you open your eyes in the morning and expose yourself to light, that sets a clock in your brain that sets everything in your physiology, the rhythms that are necessary to make sure that you're fully awake during the day and able to fall asleep and get restful sleep at night.

And even your mealtimes, your body needs to know where it is in a 24-hour day and when they're not aligned.

So if you're a shift worker and you're eating meals at three o'clock in the morning, which is what typically most people will do, that's a problem as well.

So, you know, we're starting to understand the amount and the timing, so critical for our health.

- Okay, what about folks who are shift workers or who do struggle to sleep?

Can you make up sleep at other times during the week or during the day?

How does that work?

- Well, you know, there's no way around it.

There's gonna be people that are working those night shifts.

But what you want to do is when you can, make sure you're practicing good sleep habits.

So you wanna reserve that sleep time.

Make sure when you get off work, you go right home.

You know, it's common for a lot of people to try and say, "Let me get a few errands in before I get home "and get to bed."

It's really not what you wanna be doing.

So the best you can to reduplicate, you know, what a traditional day would be like is in your best interest.

And then you want to encourage, you know, friends and family not to interrupt that sleep time.

Really guard that as best you can.

And when you are heading off to work, you don't want to be heading off to work with sleep debt, right?

It's very difficult for people that are shift workers sometimes to get that full amount of sleep and keep a regular schedule.

And there's lots of tactics to really help shift workers.

And employees are now getting smarter on how they can help employees, such as things like nap rooms, right?

And recognizing that sometimes it is necessary for shift workers to take a nap at night while they're at work.

Okay, so for the rest of us who are not shift workers or who don't struggle to sleep at certain times, how important is a consistent sleep schedule from night to night?

Like, what if I have a long weekend?

Or what if somebody, you know, is traveling and their sleep is disrupted?

What's your advice in terms of how consistent sleep should be?

Consistency is probably the most important critical ingredient for getting a good quality sleep and your well-being.

So what I tell patients, if they're going to do anything, try to get up the same time every single day.

Because awakening in the morning and exposing yourself to light at the same time every day is what sets that internal clock in those rhythms.

And we might not think that what we did a week ago or several nights earlier is really impacting your health, but it can.

So I'll say to my patients and family and friends, get up the same time every day, even on the weekends.

Don't sleep in more than an hour.

Because if you do, you're going to reset that clock in your brain and you're essentially causing a form of social jet lag.

And so on the weekends, you're better off if you've created sleep debt to take a nap, no more than 20 or 40 minutes, but that can offset any sleep debt you may have created.

And there's a lot of demands on us, so it's never going to be perfect.

So you'll have a few bad nights.

It's okay, just get back on track.

Yeah, that's good advice.

I have to give a shout out because I just love this routine, but if you've ever seen Joe Coy and his whole routine on sleep apnea and his near-death experiences at night, I really think he brought this into the conversation, kind of the general conversation about those who do struggle with sleep apnea.

How do you know if you have sleep apnea or if you're struggling during your sleep?

Some folks can't monitor that on their own.

Well, Joanna, if everything is working well, you would be getting up the same time every single morning, even without an alarm clock and feeling awake and refreshed and ready to take on the day.

And your brain knows what to do.

So if you keep that consistent schedule, there's hormones and those those rhythms that will help you drift off to sleep when you're supposed to.

So I'll say to my patients, you know, if you need eight hours of sleep, which is what most of us need, and let's say you get up at eight o'clock in the morning, then hormones will help you transition.

You'll start to feel sleepy at eleven o'clock at night.

But if you're finding it's taking more than 30 minutes to fall asleep, or if you're continually waking up at night or waking up very early in the morning, you want to consider that maybe you're one of those 70 million Americans with a sleep disorder.

There's 80 different sleep disorders.

For people who have sleep apnea, what they typically will experience is they may find that their sleep is fragmented.

They may be getting up at night to go to the bathroom.

Believe it or not, sleep apnea will strain the heart.

In an effort to protect itself, it will cause you to release a hormone, so you'll frequently get up at night to go to the bathroom.

You may be experiencing acid reflux or just waking up feeling short of breath.

And if you're tired during the day, that's another sign that something's wrong with your sleep, especially if you're getting the amount of sleep that you need at night, and despite that, you're still waking up feeling exhausted.

So most people, they... - Go ahead, Joanna.

- Just a little bit of time left.

I wanna ask you, how much do you think folks should rely on a sleep tracker versus going to the doctor?

- Well, a sleep tracker is great to reinforce good habits.

There's plenty of them out there.

And really that's where it starts, with good habits.

But sleep trackers can not make a diagnosis.

So if you have sleep apnea, or if you have maybe one of those other AD sleep disorders, you really do need to reach out to a healthcare professional and get a diagnosis.

There's things that can be done.

There's all kinds of therapies.

There's CPAP for sleep apnea, and now the new weight loss drugs, just really revolutionizing sleep and helping people to get the rest they need.

- All right, great advice for us.

Dr.

Carol Ash, pulmonologist at the DeBora Heart and Lung Center.

And of course, should just shout out that your patients do not pay for their treatment there.

All of that is provided to them.

But thank you so much.

>> Thank you, Joanna.

>> That's going to do it for us tonight.

I'm Joanna Gagis.

For the entire team here at NJ Spotlight News, thanks for being with us.

We'll see you right back here tomorrow.

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