Joint Statement From Governors Christie and Cuomo On Port Authority Consultants’s Report

Trenton, NJ – New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie today released the following statement regarding the Phase 1 Interim Consultant’s Report on the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey:

“The interim report released today on operations of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey describes an agency which failed to exercise proper oversight, control costs and budget transparently. The report’s Executive Summary describes an agency that is ‘challenged and dysfunctional,’ and where poor management ‘obscured full awareness of billions of dollars in exposure’ to the Port Authority.  

“Cause for further concern is the report’s conclusion that the WTC gross project costs, last publicly reforecast at $11 billion in 2008, have since grown a staggering $3.8 billion to $14.8 billion, at a minimum.  Similarly, the report finds capital planning is plagued by management deficiencies that have resulted in a doubling of debt in 10 years as the agency drifted from its core responsibility as a transportation infrastructure organization. Coupled with the consultant’s assessment of the impact of ‘add-on’ compensation for agency personnel – an institutionalized practice that has contributed to an unacceptable 19 percent increase in gross compensation in just five years – the interim report makes clear that wide-ranging reform is long overdue.  

“This record of historic failure must be reversed.  Steps have already been taken in the last two years, but much more must be done to restore the Port Authority to a responsible, highly transparent, well-managed organization focused on its core mission of maintaining and expanding our states’ shared transportation infrastructure for the health and growth of our overlapping economies.  We will demand nothing short of the agency’s implementation of comprehensive recommendations and reform to achieve this critical mission.” 

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Poor Dick Codey

Power Has Its Privileges

Senate President Stephen Sweeney famously called Governor Chris Christie a “rotten prick” last summer over the budget.  Assembly Speaker Sheila has called Christie a liar, a bully and implied his his administration was racist.  Christie just shrugs it off and keeps working with them.

Former Acting Governor Richard Codey, Sweeney’s predecessor, called Christie a liar earlier this week.  Christie responded by firing Codey’s cousin from a $215,000 job at the Pork Authority and cancelling Codey’s State Police security detail.

Codey can take comfort in the fact that Christie is giving him more rough and especially tumble material for the paperback edition to his book and that he hasn’t tumbled as far as Jon Corzine.

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Port Authority Toll Hike Hearings

The Port Authority of NY/NJ is having public hearings tomorrow on their proposed toll hikes for Hudson River crossings and PATH trains.

The proposed tolls and the hearing schedules, including an online hearing, can be found on the agency’s website here.

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Joint Statement from New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie on Port Authority Toll Hike Plan

Trenton, NJ – New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie today released the following statement regarding the Port Authority’s proposed toll hike plan:”The Port Authority has informed us of its proposal to dramatically increase tolls on its tunnels and bridges and fares on the PATH.

While we understand the Port Authority leadership’s concerns about a potential downgrade to its bond rating if toll increases are not instituted, our primary concern with this proposal is its impact on our respective states’ residents and commercial users of the crossings.

A downgrade of the Port Authority’s bond rating does indeed pose a potentially disastrous result on a transportation network that millions of residents of the states of New Jersey and New York rely on and would be unacceptable.

We will review the proposal with that in mind but have obvious and significant concerns. The Port Authority is facing financial issues but so are families in the states of New York and New Jersey, and the answer cannot always be an indiscriminate and exorbitant increase in the cost to the taxpayer, or in this case, toll payer. As families must carefully and effectively manage their finances at this difficult time, so must government.

It is our joint intention to cooperatively address this issue without regard for partisanship or parochialism, as was the intention and spirit of the creation of the Port Authority as a regional entity in 1921.”

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