>> From NJ PBS studios, this is NJ Spotlight News with Brianna Vannozzi.

>> Hello and thanks for joining us tonight.

>> Hello and welcome to "News at 5."

A few topics we'll get into later in the broadcast.

Is your commute back on track?

We talked to the head of N.J.

Transit now that the new portal north bridge is officially open and operating.

Plus, how much aid is your school district getting?

Senate education chair vin gopal joins us to talk about school funding and calls for reform.

And later, while the state grapples with the school funding formula, some property taxes in New Jersey are hitting record highs, but it might depend on but it might depend on where you live.

We'll break down the numbers.

But first, Heights University Hospital in Jersey City has officially shut its doors, despite last-ditch efforts from the community to keep it open.

The embattled hospital shuttered on Saturday, closing its emergency department, for real this time.

Just two weeks ago, the hospital announced a closure, but extended service for an additional two weeks after significant backlash.

Owned by Hudson Regional Health, its operators blame ongoing financial instability, at the location, citing $70 million in losses last year.

They closed most of the hospital's operations in November, but kept the emergency department open until now.

The closure leaves Jersey City with just one emergency department to serve roughly 300,000 residents.

In opposition to the closure, demonstrators staged a two-day sit-in over the weekend, saying it would cause immediate harm to residents who rely on Heights University Hospital's emergency care services.

Some protesters outlined their bodies in chalk as a staged "die-in," representing what they say will be a loss of life in the city.

On Saturday, two protesters were arrested after attempting to enter the hospital.

Jersey City Mayor James Solomon sought a last-minute injunction to keep Heights open, but a judge denied the move.

Solomon said the city may use eminent domain to take over the location.

A spokesperson for Governor Sherrill's office says the Heights Emergency Department's abrupt closure is "illegal" and that HRH violated state regulations by closing without proper approval and now owes the state tens of thousands of dollars in penalties.

Coming up, NJ Transit CEO Chris Collori has the latest on the opening of the Portal North Bridge and what it means for your commute.

That's next.

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

Making public schools great for every child.

For rail commuters, the last few weeks have been especially chaotic as work was completed on the cutover for the new Portal North Bridge.

Well, today the new bridge officially opened and schedules returned to normal with just a few hiccups and minor delays.

It's both a blessing for riders and a feat for NJ Transit after the agency announced on Friday that maintenance was finished ahead of schedule.

NJ Transit President and CEO and Executive Director of the New Jersey Turnpike Authority, Chris Calori joins us now with the latest.

Chris, great to have you here in the studio.

Good to be here.

Listen, we in the media are quick to talk very loudly, right, when things go wrong.

We're a little less quiet sometimes when things go right, but this is significant.

The North Portal Bridge, Portal North Bridge opened ahead of schedule.

Just explain what went into that process.

Yeah look it was as you can imagine.

We had a generational snowstorm.

We had more fog and rain than you can.

You can count on your fingertips.

And we had multiple challenges while we were trying to run trains next to the brand new bridge.

So the fact that the team choreographed and finished a generational project once in a century project actually on time and ahead of time is a feat of engineering.

It's a feat of human determination.

It was significant on Friday right when we had problems on the old bridge.

What happened there and how did the work on the North Bridge really save you.

So somebody discovered there were four bent catenary poles near the old bridge.

So Amtrak and New Jersey Transit worked through the morning.

I got my first call I think at 445 in the morning by 545.

They made a decision to open the first track on the brand new bridge two days ahead of schedule.

Thank God for that.

It tells you a lot about how critical these infrastructure projects are and how critical the infrastructure itself is.

So the fact that portal was open and ready to go was a big deal for that day.

What would have happened if it didn't open.

The Northeast Corridor was going to shut down.

There was no other way to get into New York City.

And that would have been an untenable position.

That means we would have had to drop everybody off at Newark and they're off taking the path to Hoboken and then take you to the ferry or go there.

Look could you have done it.

Sure.

But it was just not the right way to do it.

This is just the first phase of that project.

Right.

What happens in the fall.

Exact same thing for the second track.

So our goal is to start it four weeks before Thanksgiving and be finished before Thanksgiving.

So help us understand right now there is one way track on the on the portal North Bridge and now we're going to go the other way.

That's right.

So that's so the goal is we will decommission the one track that's on the old bridge and commission the one track on the new bridge.

So the new bridge will essentially have two tracks by Thanksgiving.

That is the plan.

Somewhere in the future.

Tell us the timing.

There will be an entirely new bridge built right.

Duplicating this.

When is that happening.

We don't have money for that yet.

But I think the plan is eventually in order to make sure you have excess capacity to have 30 40 trains go into New York City an hour.

You need the second portal bridge.

But that is a long ways off certainly past probably my tenure here.

But but I want to emphasize again for your viewers this was a project that was needed almost for four decades.

The fact that we were able to get it done on time actually ahead of schedule to meet the needs of the customers is exactly what you should expect.

Do we always get it right.

No.

But I think as you correctly said it means a lot to my colleagues that they worked so hard to make this happen.

And I'm so grateful to them and certainly to the commuters between New York and New Jersey.

This is one critical piece of infrastructure.

Can you tell us what else is in the queue when it comes to upgrades because we're about to enter the summer months.

We have the World Cup coming.

What else are you going to be working on.

Are you working on dock bridge which is right near Newark train station.

I just signed the agreement to repair that to build a new structure improve structural improvements catenary wires the Hudson Tunnel project which is a longer term project but that has to continue going.

What this shows us Joanna for me is the criticality of the infrastructure between Newark Penn Station and New York Penn Station.

It's the busiest 10 mile corridor in the Western Hemisphere.

If any one of these segments fail that means the entire Northeast corridor and the 350 trains that we use a day will not be able to go to New York.

That is not a situation that any one of us should be comfortable with.

And that's why the governor is so focused on this.

You mentioned gateway funding.

We know that the appeals court ruled in favor of New Jersey and New York that the money has to keep flowing.

Do you expect that this case is headed to the Supreme Court to the U.S.

Supreme Court.

Well let's see what happens tomorrow.

I think the federal government has a has the ability to appeal the decision.

I think tomorrow if my memory serves me right.

Let's see what happens.

But look I think even today despite all these legal challenges not one person has said that the project itself is not meritorious.

Talk about other things but not one person has ever said that the project does not need it.

So I hope that calmer heads will prevail in the end and they'll let the project go forward.

Just like we've announced multiple things.

Ultimately these are hard working jobs that will be supported by this project and will make life easier for the riders of the entire region which is good for the country.

Are you concerned with the speed that it could take if this were to go to the Supreme Court.

I mean the the first case and decision in the lower court and then to the appeals court moved pretty quickly allowing the money to free up without too much of a work stoppage.

If this does go to the highest court, do you think this could cause delays that add on to the cost?

Well, look, any delay will add on to the cost.

There is no doubt in my mind.

So let's see what the schedule looks like.

Let's see what the appeals schedule looks like.

Time will tell but I'm again hopeful that we don't have to keep fighting these legal battles and let the hardworking men and women who are building the project do their jobs.

You took on the New Jersey Turnpike Authority because you just don't have enough to do in a day, right?

I love fun.

The governor came out with a pretty significant decision there in terms of the Newark Bay Bridge.

What has she decided in terms of the expansion or not of that space and what will it mean for commuters?

Look, I think the governor made the right decision in giving us the direction.

Her point was you have the ability to put out a $6.7 billion project, the single largest project the Turnpike has ever put out, by building this bridge.

Because we have to decommission the current bridge by 2031.

NTSB says that it will be structurally unsound by then, right?

So it's already structurally deficient.

It's certainly functionally obsolete.

So we have to make decisions that are pragmatic and the governor's decision is pragmatic.

And her decision really is that it will not go to eight lanes.

It will remain four in the new bridge.

Right.

The goal.

We were always going to do a four lane bridge in the first phase.

And that's so her point is do the bridge that you have money for.

Focus on it and get it done for safety and for And that's what she's asked us to do and that's what we're doing.

I think that's the kind of pragmatic governance that is required.

And I think she's leading by by example.

And of course environmentalists are lauding that decision.

Chris Kahloury president and CEO of NJ Transit and executive director of the New Jersey Turnpike Authority.

Thank you for your time today.

Thank you.

Good being with you.

New Jersey's Supreme Court issued a monumental ruling last week that could impact school districts where allegations of sexual assault have been filed against a teacher.

In a 6-to-1 decision, the High Court found that districts could be found vicariously liable if they created an environment that failed to prevent the abuse.

The justices outlined three criteria One, if the school gave the employee charged with sexual assault the authority to control the student's educational environment.

Two, if that authority resulted in sexual misconduct or abuse.

And three, if it appears the abuse against the student was tacitly approved by the school.

Now before this ruling, districts were immune from vicarious liability as outlined in legislation.

But there's a whole lot more impacting school districts these days, starting with a school funding formula and a new administration in trenton that just released the latest state aid allocation amounts.

Joining us to talk about the process and calls for reform is senator vin go pal, chair of the senate education committee as part of our "under the dome" series.

Senator, thanks so much for being with us.

Great to talk to you.

I'm sure you've heard the calls for reform as loudly as we have here.

You've been a part of some efforts to try to get some reforms into the budgeting get some reforms into the budgeting process when it comes to state allocations.

Let's just start with what do you think are the top two, maybe three areas where this school funding formula could be updated?

Sure, it's good to be with you.

Special education is the number one area.

We're seeing that as a major cost driver for districts across the state.

And we need to start looking at a countywide or regional approach on how we're handling special education and extraordinary special education costs.

What would a countywide approach look like?

Either county or regional.

So trying to right now if a district, if a child costs more than $40,000, the district is on the hook for the majority of that, about 50-55% they're paying.

We've seen some cases where a child can be $100,000, $150,000, $200,000, especially if they're going to North Jersey or to Connecticut or out of the area.

And if we can try to create some regional hubs that capture and really make sure that we've gotten every special ed case possible, we could save a lot of money locally and we could keep kids closer to their parents.

So would you envision that being creating high-needs school facilities where students could actually go and stay in-state or stay closer to their hometown?

Yeah, and we have a lot of really successful school districts, like I've talked to Toms River and Freehold Regional, that have the space that they could create a hub.

And maybe they don't capture all the special ed facets, but maybe one or two areas and someone else has another few areas.

But the thing that we need to really work to do is how can we control these costs because you know one or two extraordinary special education cases can really bankrupt the school district.

You also worked on a piece of legislation in the last legislative session that didn't make it to the governor's desk.

It would change the what's called educational adequacy report.

First what is that report and how would you propose it be changed in terms of how it functions?

Yeah absolutely the bill did pass the Senate last session 38 to 0 unfortunately was not able to get a hearing in the assembly I'm hopeful that they'll look at it now we've had some really good conversations with the new DOE leadership the new commissioner deputy commissioner chief of staff everyone there and they've been really open-minded on what the cost is to educate a child now.

600 individual school districts I've talked a lot about it how much how expensive it can get we've got about 200 of those 600 districts have less than 500 kids and their enrollment keeps going down and it's getting very expensive to operate so looking at some mandatory consolidation mandatory shared services, looking at how we can make sure that the quality of education and at the same time we're doing the best for taxpayers happens is important and I'm hoping as we look to modernize and upgrade the school funding formula those are going to be important pieces that we take into consideration.

I know you just talked about special ed and some changes you want to make there, but this bill also proposed changes to a census model for calculating special ed costs per district.

Although, as you said, the bill never got a hearing in the Assembly, some of those changes we see being implemented in districts right now as those allocation numbers were released.

Explain that.

Yeah, so the the Sherrill administration did put into place through DOE a lot of the things that we talked about in our bill, including multi-year averages, 3% caps, so no district can lose more than more than 3%.

We saw in the early years of the Murphy years, districts losing six, seven, eight million dollars year by year and really no way to budget.

By putting that cap in at the most they can lose, it allows a district to budget.

And hypothetically, just because a district has lost 25 kids doesn't mean that their overall costs have gone down.

So with everything getting more expensive, looking at multiyear averages, looking at a census-based formula as it relates to special education, this gives us more accuracy.

I have a question for you.

The Supreme Court here in New Jersey just had a significant ruling last week that creates this vicarious liability for school districts.

One, what could that mean financially for a district facing those types of charges?

Let's start there.

Yeah, I mean this is a pretty historic.

Schools can now be held liable for, you know, what they did or didn't do as it relates to an individual employee's actions.

You know, the law massively expands the statute of limitations on civil suits over sexual abuse and assault cases and it's really just stripped public entities and schools of immunity.

So considering, you know, the SEI report also passed the trash, which is what the legislature did over the last several years, probably hasn't done enough.

And so I think we need to do more.

And I think what the court is saying today is going to put a lot of onus on school districts to really do the right thing as they screen every single employee coming in and out of their district.

You referenced Pass the Trash.

That is a bill that would prevent or at least create more information as a teacher maybe is let go from one district, perhaps because of allegations of misconduct, and then is able to go to another district and get hired.

That record doesn't always follow them.

Do I have that right?

Correct.

And that is something that every district needs to have that HR responsibility in knowing exactly who they're hiring.

And just really quickly, you know, we hear all the calls for reform, and one of the things that we've heard across the board is this local fair share, and districts really being penalized at times because property values are increasing, therefore their local fair share increases but there's no actual added value to, let's say, their ability to pay, but then property taxes go up.

Would you like to see reforms there as well?

Yeah, look, I think that there's no one-size-fits-all.

And we have seen school districts where their enrollment -- like, I know one, you know, that they've gone down 1,000 students over the last 10 years, yet their administrative costs have gone up, you know, roughly 25%.

They now have supervisors in every grade.

I think we're seeing a lot more built in, and unfortunately, some school districts are keeping -- have to live with the decisions made by school boards and superintendents 15, 20 years ago.

So I think looking at the whole structure of the school district.

I also think county superintendents who approved the school district budgets have been overly lenient in the last 10 years and I think we need to be a little bit more aggressive that if a district's enrollment is going down that that they are not just hiring as folks retire.

Just to give an example, I have a local school district that's gone from 400 kids down to about 207.

Only 30% of their building is full and the per pupil cost is $50,000 per kid.

There's nothing in that little town where redevelopment's happening or young families are moving into.

So these districts have to look at what the next 10, 15 years look like.

And I am afraid they're not doing that right now.

And it's kind of every district for themself.

And that's not a healthy statewide approach.

All right.

We have to leave it there.

But Senate Education Committee Chair Vin Gopal, thank you for your time today.

Thanks so much.

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

New Jersey's property tax increases have been outpacing inflation, increasing on average by 4.7% in 2025.

Inflation that year was 2.7%.

The average homeowner in New Jersey is paying a whopping $10,570 a year in property taxes.

So, what's driving those costs and, more importantly, the increases?

Our senior writer and projects editor Colleen O'Day is here to explain.

Colleen, great to see you.

You talk about the average that the homeowner in New Jersey will pay, but that 4.7 increase on average, what is driving those costs?

So you know, in recent years, especially, I mean, we've actually heard for a long time about health care cost increases, but especially more recently, there are some issues with the state health benefits plan and there are communities that are part of that.

And so that's been going up pretty much by double digit increases for a number of years.

It's expected to do that again this year.

So that's really a huge driver.

And that is one of the things that is exempt or outside of the cap on property taxes, which we have in New Jersey.

Other drivers are just inflation.

I mean, you know, the last year or so, we've seen high inflation.

You know, we've seen tariffs kick in, and that has increased prices for school districts, for municipalities, for counties.

So that's just generically, or generally, inflation is another factor.

And then, you know, there are increases in salaries.

You know, this is something that we might see in the coming property taxes.

We had a huge snow year this year, right?

So a lot of the municipalities went through their salt budgets, maybe had to buy more, maybe paid overtime to DPW workers for cleaning the streets.

So there are just a whole host of things that can affect property taxes.

property taxes really cover municipal, county and school services.

Right now, what is the range?

It is a pretty big range when you consider the state as a whole.

When you look at the averages, the range kind of shrinks a bit.

But what is the range that a person could pay depending on where they live in the state?

So, it's a little crazy, but we have some very small communities, and two of our smallest communities are at the top and bottom of that range.

So, Walpac, which is up in the northwest, it's mostly federal land, federal park property.

Their taxes are only $1,143.

Could you imagine?

On the other hand, down in -- wouldn't we all like to be paying that?

On the other hand, down in South Jersey, Tavistock is essentially a golf course with a few folks living there.

Their property tax last year was $38,387.

That's a tax we don't want to be paying.

So that's crazy.

But if we're looking at some more generalities, you have got about 63 communities where people are paying less than $5,000 in property taxes, which again is something I think that a lot of people would just covet.

And then there are probably two dozen communities where the average tax is more than $20,000.

So we do have quite a range.

Well, Colleen, I thought that under Governor Christie, he put in a 2% property tax increase, right?

So municipalities couldn't see these wide swings from year to year, and yet we're at 4.7%.

So what happened to the 2% property tax cap?

So as Mark Pfeiffer, who is pretty much the expert in New Jersey on property taxes, he's been, I'm pretty sure he's been a half century working in state, local government on tax issues.

He's now at Rutgers.

As he pointed out to me, it's 2% on municipal, 2% on county, 2% on schools.

So you could really have a 6% increase any year.

But in addition, there are these few items that are exempt from the tax or outside the cap, health insurance being one of them because that's just something that municipalities don't have a lot of control of.

Emergency costs might also be outside the cap.

You know, if there's another torrential storm and there's flooding, you know, responding to that would also be outside the cap.

And of course, districts and municipalities are allowed to vote to approve a higher tax rate, right, if the school district has made the case to the community that they need it.

Many have done that recently.

I want to talk about general purpose aid to municipalities.

What does that look like?

Let's start with the Murphy administration, and now we have a new Sherrill administration.

How are they handling that type of aid for municipalities?

So, you know, it's kind of seen that the state has an obligation to schools, not so much municipalities.

The municipal aid has literally been unchanged for two decades.

This year, it's expected to be about one point four billion dollars.

The only change that has come pretty much has been in what's called extraordinary aid or transition aid.

And that's given to maybe a dozen, a couple dozen municipalities who are having extraordinary issues with their, you know, balancing their budget for emergency reasons or for a host of reasons.

So, you know, this year, the governor, Governor Sherrill, is talking about increasing that amount more than by about 50, 50, 60 percent, that extraordinary aid amount.

But there are a lot of legislators who are saying, you know, everybody should be getting some sort of an increase.

It's just been too long.

There's a record budget number this year, $60.7 billion.

So any increases beyond that, it's likely to get pushback from legislators.

Unfortunately, we're out of time, but Colleen O'Day, thank you for your insight as always.

Thank you so much, Joanna.

In a stunning display this weekend, the USA men's Paralympic hockey team took home the gold medal and New Jersey native Jack Wallace, the star player for the team who grew up in Franklin Lakes, scored a hat trick to help the U.S.

defeat Canada 6-2 on Sunday.

Wallace rounded out the game with three goals and an assist, this game marking his third Olympic title and the fifth straight title for the USA Paralympic team.

And their win rounded out a historic three-peat victory for USA Hockey on the world stage after both the women's and men's Olympic teams also brought home the gold.

That's going to do it for us tonight.

I'm Joanna Gagas 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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