Cspan and the senate on cspan2. Briefing, newys Jersey Governor Phil Murphy announced he is increasing the number of people who can gather outside from 10 to 25 but with social distancing guidelines in effect. He also talks about the impact the pandemic has had on the states budget. Gov. Murphy good afternoon. Good morning, pardon me. I have already made a mistake. Im honored to be with the woman to my right who needs no introduction. To her right, another familiar face, the state epidemiologist. Thank you both for being here. To my farleft, the superintendent of the state police. To my immediate left, we have the honor to be joined by our state treasurer. We will get to liz in a minute but it is an honor to have you here. F officector o Homeland Security and other teammates. Before we get to liz, we have an announcement. Throughout the past week, we have taken the first few steps on our road back opening up toenues for people enjoy with the state has to offer and begin the recovery of our economy. Today, we are taking another step. I am signing another executive order lifting the limit on outdoor gatherings from 10 persons to 25 individuals. Indoor gatherings remain limited to 10 people. Additionally, this order allows for recreational campgrounds, both public and private, to reopen effective immediately. In both outdoor gatherings and campgrounds, however, social distancing must be adhered to. Organize gatherings must include clear demarcations for attendees and we strongly recommend that everyone continue wearing Face Coverings. If you were looking forward to gathering with your neighbors for memorial day cookout, you could do so long as social distancing and personal response ability remain the order of the day. With this, the capacity for a chartered and fishing boats, outdoor batting cages and driving ranges, among others will similarly be increased to 25. We are able to confidently make this decision today because of the hard work that each and every one of you have put in through social distancing to relieve the stress is on our health care system. Because you have taken to heart all we have asked you to do and the faith you have put enough to make the right decisions to safeguard Public Health, we can take this step together. The metrics from our hospitals that we need to put into place continue to do so, as you can see. Hospitalizations and the number of patients in the icus and ventilators, the key indicators we need to see fall have all fallen dramatically. The progression across the past two weeks it has been constant. Each green light means a day that the numbers we need to see decreased, actually decreased and even when we did have a red light day, it was also followed by an even bigger green light day. Bless you. We are seeing this reality across each region of our state. Make no mistake new hospitalizations is something that judy and tina and i continue to scrutinize quite closely. Each day brings it more signs we are being closer to being able to enter phase two of the restart. Make no mistake, we will continue down this road responsibly and deliberately because we still need some indicators in which we would rather not. However, i am proud we are able to take this step today and to add a little more hope and optimism to the unofficial start of summer. This does ask me not include Outdoor Dining. We hope to get to Outdoor Dining sooner than later. It is not yet include guidance on graduations. I am hopeful early week we can offer guidance on outdoor graduations. Moving on, we are joined today and have the honor to have to my left the state treasurer. Liz and her team recently released their first look into the tremendous impact this emergency is having on our state revenues. Falling are following up with a more covering of the report which they are providing to the legislature. We came from back to back very constructive meetings. First with the Senate President and speaker and their senior folks. And that immediately thereafter with the majority leaders. Those were very good constructive meetings. Lays a stark report and it out the fiscal crisis that looms around the corner from a Public Health crisis. I wont steal any of liz under and i know she has a short overview to telling us here that she will conduct a virtual followup session with the media this afternoon to dive into the numbers in greater detail. 1 30 p. M. This afternoon. You will forgive us for not getting too deep of a detail in particular gathering but liz will do that in the next couple of hours. I have been clear since march that we are facing an unprecedented public particulart liz will do that in the next Couple Health crisis that would soon be followed by a similarly unprecedented fiscal crisis. When liz makes her announcement later today, the full scope of covid19s fiscal impact will come into view. Suffice it to say, the hard choices i predicted are now at our doorstep. Since march, have made clear that to bridge this fiscal gap, we need more federal financial assistance. We have not yet received that. We have had some but not nearly what we are going to need. Somebodthe legislature to authorize state borrowing to fund crucial operations and i am grateful for the Assembly Speakers approach for this proposal and for posting it to a vote on june 4 but we still do not have the authority and therefore we cannot rely on these funds. The numbers you here today do not include any aspiration which we hope is for borrowing, proceeds or any federal cash assistance beyond the cares act. As i had forecast, today, we are forced to begin to make harsh decisions. We are doing our best to preserve our most critical infection investment where we can. We are proposing a 10 Million Investment in the department of health, specially and specifically for the longterm care facilities. As we work toward our new september 30 deadline for enacting a fiscal year 2021 budget, the challenge we face in balancing our wants and needs are going to be enormous. The revenue losses we can project stemming from the current emergency are drastic. A projected 10 million over the next slightly more than calendar year, through june 30 of 2020 one. Without a series of deliberate measures in place, much of what we will depend upon to lift us simply will not be there for us. We wont be able to support our small businesses. We wont be able to help families get back to par. All the work we have done to put our fiscal house back in order with backtoback surpluses and the safeties we have gleaned in health care, all of that will be swamped. Certainly there are things that can help us mitigate some of this crisis. First, we need washington to step up with significant direct physical assistance for states. Every day it seems this becomes a more and more bipartisan endeavor because more and more people in both parties, by the way, are seeing with support beams. There are just as many minds that remain closed and tractable. One of those closed minds controls the senate agenda. Lets be clear about what we are asking for. Some of the closed mind folks called this a bailout. I am not sure what they mean other than they are trying to use charged words for partisan game. It means being able to pay our police, fire, ems first responders. It means being able to keep our Health Care Workers on the job. Being able to ensure our kids have the educators they will need come fall. It means the trash being picked up. It means having the army of workers at the department of labor calling the backlog of claims. I remain ever hopeful that this package will get to the president s desk and be signed. I will continue to push this case with the president and his team, speaker pelosi, Senate Minority leader schumer and with our entire delegation. Success is far from guaranteed. We must prepare in other ways. I should say i will spend about two hours this afternoon dialing into washington and other governors, both sides of the aisle, to make the case and go through exactly the sort of budget impact we are announcing today. As i said, we have to prepare in other ways. In that, i thank craig for his leadership in posting for a vote legislation that would allow us, as a state, to take advantage of record lowinterest rates to get the funding we will need to preserve and protect our vital economic growth. And social programs and a whole lot of frontline jobs. I have said many times before, we have been approaching a fiscal cliff. Today, we get our first glimpses over its edge and it is not pretty. We have two choices. We can toss our state into the abyss or we can take measures that will allow us to slowly back away from that edge and keep our feet on solid ground. I know the outcome i would prefer and i suspect, overwhelmingly, you prefer and i hope our legislature and leaders in washington agree. We had a good conversation with the senate, president and speaker. Time is of the essence. That said, let me shift gears and turn to the overnight numbers. Yesterday, we received an additional 1394 positive test results. You can see the statewide total of 152,719. Here is the trend line. Judy and i are going to go out on a limb. There is no weakened distortion with that number. Judy will go through with that on a regional basis. We can see from the map that we look at, daily remains largely unchanged and going in the right direction. Looking at our longterm care facilities, the trend rate of new cases continues downward and with the additional help of the federal department of affairs, we have faith they will continue to decline. You can see 29,262 positive cases. And we can see the numbers of Lab Confirmed they tell these associated with our longterm care facilities have decreased. As i have said many times, in the here and now, 24 7, we have thrown everything including the kitchen sink at saving as many of the several hundred thousands of lives still associated with longterm care facilities, including both residents and members of staff. In our hospitals, the number of patients currently treated for covid19 is 3049. Our field medical stations report 43 patients. This is a breakdown of hospitalizations across regions. A number of patients reported in critical or intensive care is now 846. At 674. Use sits at 674. That is nearly half of what it was two weeks ago. There were 151 new covid19 hospitalizations yesterday. While 259 patients left our hospitals. Here are those numbers charted across our regions, which we look at every day. As i said at the top, every trend we need to see to move along our roadmap, we are seeing. The bad days are just as often followed by an equal if not better good day. As we enter this weekend, yes, please enjoy it. Dont get complacent. Keep up with your social distancing and where a Face Covering if you are going out. Especially if you are somewhere where social distances are hard to keep. Lets have a great weekend and prove we can keep these trend lines moving in the right directions. However, as we enter memorial day weekend, we must remember those who we have lost throughout this crisis. And we need to add to their numbers another 146 blessed lives lost. Our statewide total stands at 10,985. That is extraordinary. Lets think about a few of those that we have lost. First up, we remember anthony and elizabeth georgiana. They were better known as rocky and betsy. What a great couple. They were married for over 61 years. They were both born and raised in New Brunswick and they met at st. Marys church in New Brunswick after rocky returned from serving in the United States army in the korean war. There is was a story of love at first sight. They soon married and after the birth of their first child, tony, they moved to north brunswick. There, they would raise their other two children, gina and andrea, and stay for 37 years. Rocky was a proud member of carpenters local 106 out of milltown for 45 years. Betsy worked at First Fidelity bank. They always loved the jersey shore. After their respected retirements, they moved fulltime to their happy place in ocean county. Their family was always welcomed down the shore. Their children, spouses and especially their four granddaughters, alayna, avery anabela and artan. Betsy passed on may 9. Her funeral was on the 15th. Four days later, rocky passed and his funeral was yesterday. I spoke to his soninlaw and talked about their family bonds that were forged through strong values that rocky and betsy instilled in their children and grandchildren. Especially their love for the jersey shore and their overall appreciation for the preciousness of life. May god bless them both. It is only fitting that we acknowledge them and pay homage to them as we open up for the summer on the shore. God bless them both. Today, we also remember one of our tremendous first responders. David pinto from wellington. I heard about dave from many including my dear friend, bernadette mcpherson. Dave, i heard about from all different directions. He was born in jersey city. He began as a letter carrier. He found a new avenue of service. Since 1994, he had been a member of the emt squad with the new jersey sports and exposition or authority. He was proud to say he worked at world cup soccer matches and countless concerts. I know the boss watches us from time to time. 15 of those concerts were Bruce Springsteen shows. Not that anyone counted. He loved every second of it. He was present for a bunch of jets and giants games. He worked at the meadowlands racetrack. Wherever and whenever dave was needed, he was there. He had served a variety of roles along with the chief of wellington fire department. He was a past number of the wallington board of education and was elected by his peers to be the president. He was an active member of the wallington emergency squad for over 30 years until his passing. Dave leaves behind his High School Sweetheart and wife, barbara, as well as daughter nicole and son david and one grandson. He leaves countless friends and colleagues. I spoke with barbara, nicole and david yesterday. It was a moving conversation about an incredible guy. Dave was just 70 years old. We thank dave for his career of service and we keep him and his family in our thoughts. God bless you and god rest your soul. Three more among the thousands of lives cut short by covid19 across our state. This is our family. We all mourn with those left behind. This weekend, lets take a moment to say a prayer for them as we remember our fallen military heroes especially. Switching gears. We just got word that my request for an extension of the fema testing sites in Bergen Community college and the pnc bank center has been accepted and extended until the end of june, which is a big deal. Otherwise, it was only going to be to the end of may. That is huge. Also there is an acknowledgment that the capacity of testing in each of those sites will also be raised. That is really, really good news from a testing front. We get a quick announcement from the office of the secretary of higher education, dr. Zacchaeus ellis. Our public colleges and universities will be dividing up 68. 8 Million Dollars in federal cares act funds to help them cover more of the expenses they have incurred in their efforts to continue providing Educational Services to their students. Specifically, this funding is coming from the governors Emergency Education relief fund, which provided us with a flexible emergency block grant. Working with dr. Smith ellis and her team, we are developing a formula to ensure this funding is equitably allocated among our Public Institutions of higher education. It must be noted that this funding comes on top of the nearly 310 Million Dollars in federal support we are delivering to our elementary and secondary schools to help them weather this emergency. I am proud that we can now better support our colleges and universities as well. Before i turn things over to liz, i want to close with a note about the weekend before us. It is at this point i usually give a shout out to an individual or communitybased group making a difference in our communities. Today, i want to give a much broader collective shout out to all of the women and men who have served our nation and our armed forces in times of war and in times of peace. And through them, to all of the new jerseyans who died while in service to our nation. There will be more commemorations in cemeteries across our state. Graves will be decorated with flags. On monday morning, i will be joined with the Brigadier General and others for a small commemoration at the brigadier william c. Doyle Memorial Cemetery in wrightwood every as i do every year. Another special commemoration will be aboard the battleship new jersey where a virtual celebration via facebook will honor the 77th anniversary of its commissioning. There should be zero irony that the most decorated naval vessel in our nations history, a battleship dedicated to the preservation of peace in our hemisphere bears the name of our home state. Like our people, new jersey is strong and tough. Battle tested and always answered the call of service to defend our nations values. To every honored veteran across our state, we thank you for your service to our nation and for living the highest values of patriotism. Through you, we remember your brothers and sisters in arms who are no longer with us. Let us never forget all who gave their full measure on the battlefields, on the seas and in the air, so that the ideals of our nations could be a beacon of hope for all of the world. As i close today, may god bless you all. May god bless all who served and may god continue to bless the great state of new jersey and the United States america. With that, please help me welcome the treasurer of this great state. A great leader in her own right, treasurer liz boyle. Thanks, governor. Thank you for having me here today. Just like everyone at home, we have appreciated these briefings. We are grateful for your study leadership and the hard work of y leadership and the hard work of everybody at the table. Thank you all. As we are all aware, covid19 has created a Public Health crisis not seen since the spanish flu over a century ago. It has also created a Global Economic crisis that the world has not seen since the great depression. That is what we at the treasury have been dealing with behindthescenes the scenes for several months. New jersey is not alone. States across the country are facing similar fiscal challenges that seemed inconceivable a few months ago. As we know, times of serious trial for treasury, our primary goal from day one has been to ensure first and foremost that the people of new jersey have the resources and support they need to address this brutal Public Health crisis. At the same time, we have been working nonstop to address the fiscal crisis that has grown to unprecedented proportions. It has not been easy. Our challenges, like yours, are real. They are like nothing most of us have ever witnessed before. There is not going to be one easy solution. We will need a multifaceted approach. It will require some tough decisions. Like many taxpayers, we, as a state, have been living paychecktopaycheck for far too long. Under the governors leadership, we had really started to make Great Strides over the past two years to improve our fiscal condition. Doing it the way most families do, shoring up our savings, paying our bills and investing wisely. We made record payments into the Pension System to decrease our liability. We boosted our savings by increasing our surplus significantly and making our first Rainy Day Fund deposit in a decade. And we were making serious investments in areas that had been starved for resources. Public education and new Jersey Transit chief among them. And then covid came along. The Global Pandemic it has burnt has halted its progress in its tracks. Economic analysts have been working aroundtheclock ever since to try and gauge the short and longterm impact of this crisis. Based on a wide variety of economic assumptions, we are now potentially in new jersey seeing new jersey facing a shortfall of nearly 10 billion through the fiscal year of 2021 next june. 10 billion. That is a jawdropping figure. While there are many moving parts, what is clear is that a decline of this magnitude would be worse than the Great Recession. When it comes to the sales tax, for example, which has obviously been impacted by business closures, we are forecasting a 33 decline in collections from may through july over the same period last year. For context, the worst sales tax month during the Great Recession in 20082009, saw a decline of 18. 4 . The Rainy Day Fund will easily be depleted. I point this out not to be a doomsayers but to underscore that extremely difficult decisions will have to be made in the weeks and months ahead. Decisions no one wants to make but they will be unavoidable. Just like it will be for many new jerseyans, our road ahead will require a combination of serious budget tightening, critically needed borrowing and federal assistance. Much more robust federal assistance. The governor has been out there since day one, lobbying for the federal support we unequivocally need. He has been a tremendous ambassador for new jersey and our needs. One would even think he might have done this for a living before at some point. The budget report we will be releasing a little later today is designed to serve as a roadmap to help new jersey begin to navigate what is essentially uncharted territory. It is marked by hard choices. Some we have already made and some we are proposing to make. As soon this crisis began to unfold, we placed roughly one billion dollars of appropriations into reserves. We issued a statewide hiring freeze except for crucial covid related needs. We put more than 500 million in other planned spending for this fiscal year on hold. We are also proposing to the appropriate approximately 1. 32 billion, which was not an easy choice because it included many priorities shared by everyone. And additional balances will be retained and reserved until we see how the current fiscal year pans out. As the governor said, i will go into greater detail during our Virtual Press conference later this afternoon. Essentially it will outline the administrations proposed path through the extended fiscal year, which will now end three months later than normal on september 30. Our hope is that by then, we will have a better handle on what federal assistance we can anticipate receiving. And we will also have a better handle on how our state revenue situation is looking since we extended the tax filing deadline from april 15 to july 15 to help provide relief for taxpayers. The report we are releasing today also recognizes the significant challenges that lie ahead in the development and passage of the next budget for fiscal year 21. I have no doubt we will get through this like we have many times before. Like the governor says, we are certainly not going to be spiking any footballs anytime soon. He is also fond of saying we will get through this together. At the end of the day, i have no doubt we will position new jersey firmly on the road to recovery. Thank you. Liz, thank you for your extraordinary leadership in both peace and at war. This is a lot harder in peacetime. A big part of the reason to get out here was to restore not just get the economy growing and make it fair again but restore fiscal sanity. We had made such progress led by you over the past two, now almost 2. 5 years. I will repeat mike tyson. Everyone has a plan until you get punched in the face. God knows we have been punched from a health and economic perspective. Look at job losses, look at the crushing impact of small businesses. Hospital systems, transit and add to that states and the key challenge for us, again, that is why we need to be able to borrow. That is why we need the direct fiscal cash and assistance from washington. Not to help us with what we got elected to fix. We have a plan for that. That we are ok with. We have to keep firefighters, police, ems, healthcare workers, educators in their jobs at our greatest hour of need. Serving our residents who need them more than ever before. At the same time, keeping employment as robust as humanly possible. That is what we need the help for. Thank you for your leadership and your whole team. Please help me welcome the woman who needs no introduction to my right. The commissioner of the department of health. Good morning. As we prepare for the memorial day holiday weekend, we expect more residents to be out in our parks, visiting beaches and having backyard barbecues. Being outdoors and physically active is so important for your mental and physical health. We want you to enjoy these activities safely. So today, i want to reemphasize the importance of taking precautions to protect yourself and others. We want individuals to wear Face Coverings and to wear them correctly. Your nose and your mouth should be covered. When possible, clean your hands with soap or water. There are alcoholbased Hand Sanitizers, immediately before putting on your mask. Remember, Face Coverings do not replace social distancing. They are protecting you from me. Practiced social distancing as you enjoy outdoor activities. Stay at least six feet apart. Bring and frequently use Hand Sanitizer with at least 60 alcohol. Avoid gathering with others outside of your household. Dont visit crowded outdoor spaces where you cannot appropriately distance from others. Of course, if you feel sick, please stay home. Even if you are outside, do not attend large mass gatherings. Just this week, the cdc released a report that examined the cascading impact of two ill individuals who attended gatherings at their church in march. 35 of 92 attendees at the church acquired covid19 and three deaths occurred. Subsequently through contact tracing, contact with church cases lead to 26 additional cases being confirmed. Including one death in the committee. So from two individuals spreading the virus, 61 cases of confirmed covid19 were found and four deaths resulted. This report emphasizes that large gatherings pose a significant risk for the transmission of the virus. From my daily report last evening as the governor shared, our hospitals reported 3000 hospitalizations with 846 individuals in critical care. 80 of them are on ventilators. Today, i am reporting a total of 19 cases of multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children. There are no new deaths reported. I should say there are no deaths reported. The ages of the children affected are one through 18. 14 of the 19 have tested positive for covid19. In terms of deaths, the breakdown of deaths is white, 53 point three. 53. 3 . Black, 18. 5 . Asians, 5. 5 and others, 3. 4 . 381 residents tested positive, a total of 143 deaths. 210 patients have tested positive and there have been a total of 13 patient deaths. No new deaths today. As of may 18, new jersey overall percent positivity, 14 . 12 in the north. 13 in the central part of the state and 24 in the south. That concludes my daily statistical reports. Enjoy your holiday weekend, safely. Thank you for that and for everything. I mentioned this in passing. I will make two quick comments. The weekend gives distortions of would my theory of the case. Second, note the number is higher in the south. That is consistent with what we have been saying for weeks, in terms of the migration and you look at the hospitalizations. Thank you for all of the above. Please help me welcome the superintendent of the state police with updates on compliance and other matters. Another great leader, pat callahan. Good morning. With regards to the compliance issues overnight, a car wash owner was cited for having an open and operating carwash. In hillsboro, a gym owner was cited for being open. A pizzeria was cited for having both indoor and Outdoor Dining underway and refused to close when warned. In clifton, a hair and nail salon owner was charged with a violation. A large crowd gathered and failed to disperse. One subject was cited for violation. In gloucester, Township Police responded to a dispute between father and son. The father was placed under arrest, charged with resisting during the arrest. Kicked officers and coughed on them, claiming they had covid19. Real quickly, governor, if i may, because she is here, the state treasurer, your team at the division of Property Management and construction, we could not have built those hospitals and those sites, we could not have gotten ppe and ventilators without that collective effort from all entities in treasury. I certainly just want to thank you for that, in addition to our county oem for naders who continue to go above and beyond with things that we are asking them to do that none of us ever thought we needed to plan for from ppe to test sites to assessing what mitigation efforts we were going to put in place. Amen to that. Liz, thank you for your leadership. I will come back to compliance in a second. When liz and i first met, liz was a Senior Executive at mercer county, her home county. She was the head of the Political Party here. She became a member of the assembly. It is an extraordinary professional and life story. Compliance again, overwhelmingly people are doing the right things. To repeat what i said earlier, we are not opening up dining either outdoors or indoors. Please dont mistake what i have said about increasing the allowed gatherings to 25 persons. I hope to get to Outdoor Dining sooner rather than later but we are not there yet. Secondly, we continue to say that the hope for those who want to have some sort of an outdoor, properly socially distant graduation ceremony, your hope is wellplaced. I hope we can have some guidance for you early mid week. We want to get this right, obviously. This would be a big gathering and it has to be done right. I echo what judy said. Christina may comment on this at some point as well. Not only are the big gatherings, indoors in particular, and in close proximity challenging but the impact the virus has on individuals from those gatherings is much more consequential and much more difficult than just getting it in a passing way. Please, folks, we are not doing this for any reason other than to keep as many people healthy and alive as possible. Pat, thank you for that report. Lets start over here. We will go quickly because we have a lot of folks who want to get away. Governor, two quick questions. Could you explain what a furlough decision would mean for state workers . The other question is and i know you are tired of hearing about this but the gym owners, they were closed yesterday because you decided to close them down. They reopened again this morning. Where do you go from here with people who continue to defy the orders . I will not comment on the specifics. You will forgive me for that because i am sure there is going to be all sorts of noise around that, including legal. Let me say two things unequivocally. Overwhelmingly, gym operators are doing the right thing. A lot of them are coming up with responsible plans, saying how do you guys feel about this. Overwhelmingly, it is compliance. Secondly, we are not there yet. What good does it do us to say we are not opening gyms unless we have a good reason . If you are in do not have ventilation, you are sedentary or sweating and spitting and breathing heavily, it is a petri dish. There is no reason otherwise we wouldnt want to do this. I want people to go out. Judy wants them to go out and get the Mental Health they deserve, the physical health they deserve. On furloughs, do you mind commenting on that . Yesterday the Civil Service commission relaxed some rules and regulations that would allow for a voluntary furlough up to 90 days, as well as to continue the employer contribution on health benefits. The state has not furloughed any workers to date, obviously given the revenue numbers the treasurer has spoken about, i would say we are actively in conversation. All options are on the table. There are a number of local units that have collectively bargained furlough agreements, are working with labor and they needed flexibility within the rules that the service has granted. List will go through the budget later today and it is dire stuff. You may want to look at that and come back to us. Lisa, good to see you. Nice to see you. For the state treasurer, you mentioned 1. 32 billion. Could you give some detail on that figure . Where it applies and how that breaks down exactly . You may want to give a couple of broad strokes. This is an example of something we will get into. Is that fair to say . Yes. And the report will specify where the appropriations will occur. For purposes of this discussion, the majority of them will be on the reserve list and are currently on the billion dollars reserve list that omb, the office of measuring and budget has updated. It is a little bit on steroids. That was just under 1 billion. This is just over 1. 3 billion. Is that correct . That is correct. Good morning. A couple of questions. For the treasurer, when you announced your latest revenue predictions on may 13, they were based on the assumption that there will not be a resurgence of covid19 cases later. Since Health Officials and models are projecting there will be a second surge, why do you not include those assumptions in projecting the revenue losses . Wouldnt that make the predictions a little more rosier than reality . For the governor, in light of the financial crisis the state faces, which is something immigration how likely is it for new jersey to provide assistance for undocumented immigrants that file income taxes which is , something immigration advocates and lawmakers are pushing for . Turning to the shore towns, many short towns are concerned they will not have enough officers for the summer season. That was widepoint Pleasant Beach said they could not open the boardwalk, because they do not have enough officers to patrol. Is there any update you have on reopening the Police Academy . For a lot of the shore businesses, summer is an essential season for them. What kind of timing are you looking at for reopening arcades, rides and the boardwalk shops . One last one. Quickly. Are you planning to visit the boardwalk or beaches this weekend . Thats a good one. You ended on a nice note. I will say a few things and then maybe liz and pat will want to weigh in. Liz will say this. It does not envision a resurgence. If we do get a resurgence, you and your team are plus or minus, it is another 1 million. I would not use the word rosy in any event to describe what you will hear later on. We are in a very resource constrained world. We had a meeting, as i promised yesterday, director maples, colonel callahan, george, myself, davenport, number two in the Justice Department talking about preparedness for memorial day weekend. This topic not just came up yesterday but it has come up whether or not shore towns have enough folks to be able to have a point of attack. I will let pat and or jared weigh in. Nothing new to report on arcades or shops. This will depend on if we continue to have another couple of good weeks. My hope is we get to that, particularly if they are outdoors. Lastly, yes, i will be somewhere, probably doing a run and strolling a little bit with my wife somewhere in the seaside park neighborhood sometime this weekend. I dont have an exact moment as to win. Liz, anything else you want to add on resurgence . No, other than our office of revenue and Economic Analysis has taken a look at modeling out what we would expect if there was a fall resurgence. The governor predicted another 1 billion hit in our revenues. That will be in the report issued this afternoon. It is difficult to have a budget supposing there is a resurgence. Modeling is difficult in the best of circumstances because we have no precedent for this. If we are letting the legislature know that in the event that happens we could expect a worse outcome to the tune of about 1 billion, we have not modeled what some epidemiologists are predicting. And ebb and flow of the virus is not something we have modeled out but that is something to take into consideration. We have not modeled in a valid reputed or vaccine which would swing us to a more positive place. Any comments on shore, particularly summer Surge Staffing or advice for folks in terms of figuring out if it is safe to get out on the beach . Sure. The attorney general and i were on a call this morning with 800 Law Enforcement officers. A lot of chiefs from around the state. The shore was a topic of discussion. We are working with the Police Training commission on making sure we have enough special officers. That is starting to shake loose right now, in addition to our own state police class. We think we will be wellpositioned with the staff throughout the summer to support the shore towns. I hope it is 85, sunny and low humidity. It will be none of that this weekend. I am not happy to say that. I would prefer it to be otherwise. In this extraordinary moment, it almost certainly gives us an opportunity to creep into the summer of little more gradually than otherwise. Do you have anything . You are good . Ok. Matt, how are you . Dont pull a hamstring coming across the room. Have you got an updated outbreak plan from longterm care facilities . Can you update us on how many staff and residents have been tested so far . Counties have been asking for state oversight as early as march. Was the state slow to respond . A separate topic what is the , percentage of testing in for covid in different settings like safety Psychiatric Centers mental , centers and prisons and how does that compare to the general population . How many correction staff have died from covid and why is the state not reporting this number . You are reporting deaths among staff at developmental hospitals, psychiatric hospitals and nursing homes, etc. And should residents prepare for tax increases . On the last one, there is nothing that liz will talk about today that includes tax increases in the budget, period, unless there is something i missed. We are commenting between today and september 30. We have given you a chapter in verse the approach to longterm care facilities. With all due respect to the questions folks were asking this , is world war iii. We have gone through a very comprehensive, particularly yesterday, set of steps we took from the getgo. I think judys first directive was on march 6. A big part of this reality is our operators, who operate over many different locations. Judy, we have an update on the outbreak. That was in longterm care. I missed the first question. It was longterm care, psychiatric hospitals, Developmental Centers and prisons and how that compares to the general population. I dont have comparisons to the general population. You want outbreaks in psychiatric we show the positives every day and the fatalities every day from longterm care facilities. What more do you want . [indiscernible] tell me if you disagree with this. We show the number of positives every day. I dont know we have the Positivity Rate for longterm care. We have it for the state. We show the number of fatalities. We also showed, again, the other day, the hierarchy of where the order of the testing and vulnerable communities including longterm care are among the first category. If you look at testing per capita, it will be higher at a longterm care facility then it is in the general public because you go from longterm vulnerable populations, frontline workers and first responders, and then the general population. Per capita, you will have more testing up top. Second here, third here. I have the Positivity Rate and longterm care with 35,215 tests. It is 8 . And the retest of 4179 individuals who originally tested negative were retested within three to seven days. That percent positivity was 10 . So, lower than what we are reporting in the general population at this point. You asked about correction staff fatalities. We will come back to that. Good morning, still. Good morning, governor. Some recall committees were formed in trenton, which has would you sign an executive order allowing for the electronic collection signatures for that or will they have to collect signatures in person . I want to thank the Health Commissioner for her help getting them to release their data. And respectfully, why are you allowing these Health Care Facilities to decide whether or not to release that data . Shouldnt the public have access to that information regardless . There is a situation in New Brunswick where they are planning to demolish a Public School. It is to expand the rutgers cancer institute. It is a school that was a private school for many years. It is the alma mater of the Health Commissioner. Local taxpayers paid 22 million to upgrade and reopen it as a Public School four years ago. Commissioner, how do you feel about Robert Johnsons plan to destroy that School Building . Will you intervene to save the school or ensure a Replacement School gets built before any closure . Governor, how do you feel about the School District in New Brunswick attempting to move forward with the plans to sell the school during the pandemic . Is this the right time for districts to be taking such measures . As a graduate, judy has a conflict of interest. I will let judy speak for herself. The first time i was asked about the electronic petitions i have , no good answer for you. We will come back to you on that. The second point was an homage to judy. Rwj barnabas releasing information. I will let matt plankin handle your question about why should Health Care Facilities themselves make the decision on complying. I have no opinion other than we have the number Public Education one system in america and i wanted to stay that way. Let Research Center will be a that cancer Research Center will be a game changer for many things including jobs and education. Beyond that, i have no comment on that. Anything on the eeo data or disclosures . We pursue data every day. We would have to take a look at particular request. We will come back to the specifics of the request. Anything on your alma mater . I have fond memories. The bricks and mortar [indiscernible] god bless you. Thank you. Lets go back. Good afternoon. We are still there. For municipalities in the pineland, will the pilot funding for the preserved open land remained restored as a result of this fiscal crisis . Why are you holding off on opening Outdoor Dining . What didnt you see . For towns that have a surplus, are you recommending that they expend the surplus in its entirety before furloughing or laying off personnel . My fourth question is in result regards to the significant sales tax loss. How much of the overall revenue pie is that . The overall loss in revenue . On municipalities in the pinelands, whether or not the pilot money is impacted by the budget, i will defer to lizs briefing later on. We are holding off on Outdoor Dining because of the fact that, while it is outdoors, you are in close proximity and youre sedentary by definition, sitting having dinner. , we want to make sure we have that right. I hope for sooner rather than later, but we are not there yet. Surplus in towns, should they spend before they furlough, that will be subject to the specifics of the town. Surpluses we hold dear at the state level. Any municipality that has likely one also holds it dear. At the same time, if they are faced with some tough decisions in terms of doing that versus laying people off, furlough or otherwise, it is another reason why we need to borrow, we need federal cash assistance and that goes right to addressing that particular point. 2. 7 billion hit between now and june 30. None of this is about expenses. We are talking about revenues. Expenses battling covid are going up by the day. 2. 7 billion between now and september 30 and another 7. 2 billion between october 1 and next june 30. How much of that, each of those cases, dollar wise is sales tax . Do you have that . That is when you asked for the overall figure, you were talking about sales tax overall decline. The sales tax for fy 20 is predicted to decline by 1. 31 billion less than the forecast in february. That was as of late february . Right. February 25. That is a 10. 9 decline for the fiscal year of 2020. In the fiscal year of 2021, revenues for sales tax expected 1. 528 billion, or 14. 2 lower than the governors budget message in february. Gov. Murphy you would add 1. 13 to 1. 5 and get 2. 6 and change, about 9. 9 billion. Thank you. Brent . Does yesterdays announcement on furloughs, in lieu of steve sweeneys furlough plan . Do you plan to veto that now . People who buy cars from private individuals can register online and need to drive to get to work what alternatives are you thinking of . Can the state have licensed driving instructors give road tests to new drivers, report to the state and remotely issue a temporary license to reduce backlog . The cdc said there is evidence the virus may not spread as much as once thought on surfaces. With beaches opening, what is the guidance for people with separate families who want to share a house . Are they not allowed to . Gov. Murphy i will ask matt to address a number of these but judy, tina, i read the same guidance brent is asking about. They are reassessing how long this virus lives on a surface. I would think, to this question, if it is an upper surface, that is something we will likely get to, to an indoor surface, but any reaction to that . The evidence suggests contaminated surfaces are not the main motive transmission. That does not mean you should not be disinfecting surface. All those measures need to be implemented, even if the mechanism of transmission might not be as viable. Grief from you about using the phrase, bubbles but that is the commonly used phrase about where you are cohabitating folks in a or similar ecosystem over a period of time. It is a challenge. I am not a health expert, but when you start crossing bubbles, it is a step where you take more risk. I would say, go into that with your eyes open, this is your last question and even if you are under the same roof, if you have not been with that person, if you have different groups, adhere to the limits of congregation we are raising today. I would keep your distance, a personal opinion. I would not be sitting tightly indoors with someone you have not been hanging around with. You good with that . Do you disagree . [indiscernible] matt, you got furloughs . The Center President s bill. Private car sales. Im not sure i understood your drivers road test. Because people cannot go to dmvs to get the drivers license, i guess this goes back to teenagers driving. This is from a colleague. Can the state have licensed instructors report the results back to the state and remotely issue a temporary . Gov. Murphy the answer is no. With private car sales and furloughs. On private car sales, we will have nbc get back to you, brent. On furloughs, what yesterdays actions meant, i will defer comment on the bill until the governor is ready to take action. On the shared houses, if it is not their primary residence, if people are not living together on a permanent basis, there is the 10 person limit indoors, still applies. Towns themselves, still have authority to make determinations as to whether they want to allow shortterm rentals. Some have, some have not. Gov. Murphy i made another mistake. It is officially afternoon. The indoor restriction remains at 10. I should have said that. What we lifted today was outdoors. [indiscernible] gov. Murphy yeah but you have to be smart. You have to use common sense. This will be a challenge for everybody as we further open how do you responsibly, by the way, lets remember, we have said this from the get go most importantly, the most vulnerable among us. Seniors, comorbidities, intensely congregated persons, communities that are most vulnerable, communities of color, quite clearly. There will be certain density, is something we have to be careful, we have to be careful across generational. It is one of the biggest challenges, you have asked about education and what our game plan looks like. It is one of the toughest nuts to crack between judy, the department of education and their teams what does that look like . Daniel. These are all budget questions. There might not be any tax increases through september 30 but beyond that could be different are you saying there in fy21 . E increases 10 million is a sizable chunk but it seems different from the 30 billion you had mentioned in the past. Why the discrepancy . Do you expect a drop in the gas tax meeting the rate will have to increase this summer . Gov. Murphy say that again. Do you expect the drop in the gas tax means the rate would go up this summer . Do you expect the States Credit rating could go down, sorry, go down because of the borrowing of the Federal Reserve . Gov. Murphy some quick thoughts and then liz can come behind me. We are not here today, lizs briefing through september 30, the projected revenue loss for the period between october 1 and june 30, im not opining on our solutions, other than we need federal cash and we need to be able to borrow. Today we are here to talk about, in terms of a full budget, between now and september 30, then at some point down the road, we will talk about october 1 to june 30. 10 billion in revenue changes does not include a dramatic amount of expenditure, ppe, medications, ventilators, beds, dealing with this crisis is a lot more beyond the revenues, that is only through june 30 next year. I am still going to answer, thank you. Liz makes the decision on gas tax in august. Last i checked, it is my. It is we will come back to may. You on that. We have been in touch with the ratings in does juries industries. Liz and her team have outstanding relationships with them. It is too early to tell. We want to make sure before we go live today with what we are going live with in terms of a proposed stub period budget. Liz will give you more detail, at 1 30 p. M. , we absolutely as a courtesy give them a headsup, at least in the general parameters what that will look like. We will have followup discussions with them. I cannot speak for them. I will say, decades from now if we borrow money, please god, we need to, if we look back one whether this was a good time for interest rates, the use of proceeds were prudent . The answer will be a resounding yes to both. Liz, do you want to add anything . Just to reiterate what the governor said. We are in regular contact with rating agencies. The governor, since coming to office has met with them every year, at least a couple times to go over proposed and finalized budget decisions. We will see how the budget plays out and we will learn through the year what their reactions are. We were pleased to note in the opinions that have come out, the issuing from the Credit Rating since the crisis have begun, has noted the fiscally responsible actions taken by the Administration Since coming in in january. That is good news for us but clearly we are facing unprecedented, fiscal crisis now. We are going to work through it. We will continue our relationship with the Credit Rating agencies. On motor fuels, we are seeing declines. We will get more detail on that this afternoon. As the governor said, we will work with the office of legislative services in august to look at the numbers. It is formulaic. That will determine whether we have to raise or decrease the gas tax, effective october. Gov. Murphy it is important to remind everyone, liz trying to put her finger in the air to decide what the gas tax should be. This was a formula put in place before we got into office. The only stipulation is the treasurer has to make a conclusion. With that, i will start to mask up. Im honored to wear my mask today. Our flag. A couple housekeeping matters. Number one, nearterm, here and now, liz is on at 1 30 p. M. Today for a Detailed Press briefing. We are going to give you all in the media, a couple days off. We will be communicating electronically over the entire weekend, saturday through monday. We reserve the right, dan brian is with us today, reserve the right to get on the phone with you or god forbid, get in person with you if there is a Meaningful Development or reason to do so. Otherwise, we will be back physically with you all tuesday at 11 a. M. , 11 a. M. We have a white house call at 1 p. M. We will be back live with you on tuesday. If we think there is a reason to do so beforehand, we will get a hold of you asap. The exception is lizs discussion of the budget today at 1 30 p. M. I said to judy, by the way, we are not taking the weekend off. We will be fighting this, morning, noon, night. I promise you. We will be paying close attention to the shore, our lakes, and a shout out to our lay communities. This is overwhelmingly about the shore communities and the beaches but importantly, about our lakes. I want to thank judy, christina, for your leadership, and each of you, liz, thank you again, incorporate my prior comments by reference, pat, jared, matt, the whole team. Most importantly, everyone out there, two simple comments. Thank you for everything you have done. Please keep doing it. A word that keeps coming up is lets all behave responsibly to , each other and as it relates to our Public Health, so that as we begin to open up and wrestle with the questions about crossing in with other people we have not seen in a while, which will inevitably happen, that we do that responsibly. Secondly, lets remember what memorial day is about. It is about our veterans, the members of our armed services, especially about those who have lost their lives defending our nation and standing up for our values. There is no values anywhere in the history of man that comes close to the American Values and no state has stood taller in defending those values at every step of the way, from the revolution to today than new jersey. God bless you all and take care. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] governor roylina cooper said restaurants can have in person dining