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- [00:00]
Farnoosh Torabi
This episode is sponsored by Stripe. 1.3%. It's a small number, but in the right context, it's a powerful one. Stripe processed just over $1.4 trillion last year. That figure works out to about 1.3% of global GDP. And powering that figure are millions of businesses finding new ways to grow on stripe like Salesforce, OpenAI and Pepsi. Learn how to build the next era of your growth@swepe.com enterprise.
- [00:34]
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- [01:39]
Farnoosh Torabi
So Money Episode 1909 New Jersey Governor elect Mikey Sherrill on fixing schools, healthcare and the cost of living.
- [01:49]
Mikey Sherrill
You're listening to so MONEY with award winning money guru Farnoosh Torabi. Each day get a 30 minute dose of financial inspiration. World's top business minds, authors, influencers and from Farnoosh yourselves. Looking for ways to save on gas or double your double coupons. Sorry, you're in the wrong place. Seeking profound ways to live a richer, happier life. Welcome to SO Money. When I started this race, I kind of looked into how to do this right to provide better healthcare at more affordable prices and what the state could do. And largely even in Massachusetts, it's not working super well because so much of the funding funding comes from the federal government. It's very hard as a state to operate in an independent healthcare system. New Jersey sends $70 billion more to the federal government than we get back in our federal taxes. The way it's some of it comes back to us is through things like Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security, et cetera. And so that's why this healthcare issue is so critical, because we're not only seeing huge cuts to Medicare, we're seeing now, as you mentioned, the Affordable Care act, which will have people's premiums going up by 175%. And so we're gonna see a lot of people who aren't gonna be able to pay that. So suddenly we're seeing this crisis in how people are gonna have access to healthcare.
- [03:14]
Farnoosh Torabi
Welcome to so Money, everybody. I'm Farnoosh Tarabi. My guest today is someone whose name you're gonna hear far beyond the borders of New Jersey, former Congresswoman Mikey Sherrill, and is a former Navy helicopter pilot and federal prosecutor who recently became the newly elected governor of New Jersey. And she did so in a decisive win that also coincided with a major sweep for Democrats all across the country. And whether or not you live in my home state, her election reflects a political mood shift we're seeing across the US and it brings up questions that affect every single one of us, including the future of our schools and the cost of living, taxes, health care, and who we trust to lead us during uncertain times. Now, just to pause here, because we often think that politics and personal finance do not intersect, that they live in separate worlds. Well, they don't. The people we elect make decisions that directly influence our ability to afford the basics, the basics that we deserve, including homeownership, childcare, health insurance, energy bills, taxes. They set the guardrails that either protect our financial lives or put them at risk. And Governor Lex Sherrill is stepping into office at a moment when many families across the country, maybe including yourself, are feeling squeezed. In our conversation, she and I talk about the rising cost of living and what states can realistically do about it, how to sustainably fund public schools, and why school finance challenges aren't just a New Jersey thing, but a crisis affecting cities and suburbs everywhere. The future of health care. Her plan to freeze utility rates in New Jersey, including what's real and what isn't. Now, this interview originally ran on my other podcast, the Montclair Pod, where I co host with my neighbor and longtime journalist Michael Schreiber. You'll hear Mike in this episode, too. And while parts of our conversation are rooted in what's happening locally, here in Montclair, the themes, including school funding, inflation, access to health care, tax pressure, are playing out in towns across America. They're relevant to all of us. So whether you're tuning in from California, Texas, Georgia, or right here in Jersey. There is something in the discussion for you because at the end of the day, when we talk about how our schools are funded, how much we pay to keep the lights on, how our families can stay afloat, we're talking about money. We're talking about our lives. Here's my conversation with New Jersey Governor Elect Mikey Sherrill.
- [05:50]
Michael Schreiber
Governor Elect Mikey Sherrill, welcome to the Montclair pod. Thank you so much for joining us.
- [05:54]
Mikey Sherrill
Thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it.
- [05:57]
Michael Schreiber
You've been a Montclair resident since 2010. You began your political career here, and now you're headed to Trenton. And we're all wondering when is your last day in Montclair and what do you think you're going to miss most about our lovely town here?
- [06:11]
Mikey Sherrill
I think rumors of my departure have been greatly exaggerated. I have kids in school here, so I don't think I will be leaving anytime soon. I'll be commuting at least for the foreseeable future and then maybe figuring out the summers and stuff like that. But right now with my kids, I'll still be in Montclair for a minute.
- [06:29]
Michael Schreiber
Gotcha. So you're not moving the whole family into that giant governor's mansion. What is the mansion called again?
- [06:35]
Mikey Sherrill
Drumthwacket. Yes, it sounds very, it doesn't roll off the tongue. It really, I gotta say, I keep saying to my friends, oh, darling, you must visit me in Drumthwacket.
- [06:45]
Farnoosh Torabi
Will you promise us a tour, though? Will you promise us a tour?
- [06:49]
Mikey Sherrill
I will promise you a tour. And I will just put out, too, that the mansion's open to the public. And the current first lady has done a beautiful job of updating it, and it has a lot of really impressive history. I encourage everyone to take a tour of the property, especially as we're coming up on our nation's 250th. There's so much history right here in New Jersey that I'm hoping people will be made more and more aware of as we go through the next year.
- [07:14]
Michael Schreiber
All right. We're going to just dive right in to the biggest issue in town, the one everyone is talking about. As you might have heard, our school district is facing some serious financial crises, or I guess, one big crisis. And we'd love to know your perspective on all of this as a legislator, as a statewide leader, and now as governor and obviously as a parent, too.
- [07:37]
Mikey Sherrill
Yeah, as I mentioned, I have kids in school. My child in the high school right now who loves playing sports there, and we're facing the threat that those sports are gonna be canceled. He plays on the football team, and we've heard the football team might not be able to stay intact. And right now, it's not just football. It's the arts, it's music. It's all the things we want our kids to do because we're facing this mental health crisis. And now because of these poor management, we're seeing threats to those things. And it's not as if this is a really inexpensive place to live. We are paying some of the highest property taxes, not just in New Jersey, but in the nation. And so to somehow get to this point where we're what, 20 million in the hole? I'm furious about it, and I'm sure most people are. And then there's this idea that somehow we're just going to all agree to pay more money into the system without any accounting, without an independent audit of what happened. I'm sitting here and like many people, I've been really busy this past year. Four kids, I was running this campaign. You're doing all these things, and now you're just being presented like, okay, either your kid's going to have no extracurricular activities and we're going to fire half the teachers, or you're going to pay all this money on top of all the money you're already paying. I'm talking to parents who are saying, look, I don't know if I can keep my home if this is. I'm already paying these incredible property taxes which have gone up this amount of money, and now they want more. I don't know how much longer I can afford to stay here. I'm furious about it. I think the first thing that needs to happen is an independent audit of just what went on here. And then I know the state offers support for budgeting and managing school districts, but then I also think we have to take a look at just how we're running our schools, because it also seems as if we have a lot of money going to all these administrative systems across the state. And they're not going to students, they're not going to educators, they're not going to the bricks and mortar of our school buildings. You know, we have these very expensive offices that house the administrators, many of them, that really take tons of money to keep up. We're running all these administrations. In some school districts, they don't even have students. They send their students to another school district, but pay for the whole administrative system. So just to give you a sense of what this looks like. We have more municipalities than California and we have more school districts than municipalities. That is the kind of money that's going into this administrative system. I think we really need to address that. And as governor, that is something that I really want to take a look at and how this is happening, because a lot of these school districts were put in place decades ago and now we're coming to the point where they don't even have children anymore. So I think we really have to. People of this state deserve a better understanding because we like to say we run the nation's best public school system, but really it's still by zip code. And the amount of money we pay into the school system and the fact that not every kid's getting access to a great education is, to me, a mismanagement of the system. I know there's a lot of people that have been presented with this that are new and did not realize it and are trying to deal with this. And I think that's fair. I just think there has to be an accounting. So we all understand, okay, this is why this isn't happening again, or here's why we're putting this out. Here's what we're going to do to ensure better fiscal responsibility. Here's how long it's going to take us to get out of this to the extent that will be presented. I think that's hopeful.
- [11:05]
Michael Schreiber
Yeah, I'm sure we're hardly alone in that. That happens all over the state. And during your campaign, you mentioned school consolidation specifically. Can you talk a little bit about your vision for that, what that might look like here and beyond?
- [11:20]
Mikey Sherrill
So I think we have to look as governor, I'm going to convene the organization. So we can see there are school systems that are running K through 12 like Montclair is running K through 12. And then there are many systems that maybe run just K through 8 or smaller, and they have the full school board and administration, even though they're going into maybe a magnet high school. So is there a way to move the administration so you're still going to have your elementary school down the street? It's just the administration. You're going to pay less taxes and you're going to see an administration that covers your high school down through so K through 12. Now in Montclair, that would largely not. We run a pretty big school system. But I do still think that given where all this is, and you're right, this isn't the only school system that's struggling financially. I do think at either a county level or a state level, there needs to be some more professional support for this to manage some of how this money is spent. Because remember, your municipal government is responsible for the municipal budget. The school budget is so separate and often accounts for about 70% of your property taxes. And it's separate in state government. Who looks over these books? It's the DCA looks over the municipal budget, but not the school portion of the budget. That's education. And there seems to just be on school budgeting a real need for more professional support and expertise. And I think the state and the county could offer that to these municipalities as we look at how these school systems are running and who the administrator is. And I do think, Kathy, through 12 is a good place to start looking at. Can we just get everyone in A K through 12 that way? That would really, I think, cut down on property taxes and then provide some county services for professional auditing, professional running. If you're running, if you're a school system and you're a superintendent and you're looking at the books and you're saying, oh my God, I don't know how to do this, get some more professional support in. Because you're right, this seems to be now a somewhat routine problem that we're seeing across the state. To be more expertise and support.
- [13:28]
Farnoosh Torabi
Yeah, we want to shift gears now to the cost of living. We talked about taxes already. But to drill a little bit further into that issue, New Jersey and of course Montclair, we've got some of the highest property taxes in the nation. So how do you communicate to residents what they're getting for these taxes compared to people in lower tax states who say, you know what, we have a great quality of life in our state, we don't pay as much in taxes. What's the message?
- [13:53]
Mikey Sherrill
I think this is why I'm so frustrated slash furious about what's going on in our town is the deal is you pay these taxes so that you get a great education for your kids, so that you have a well run government, so that you know that children who don't have enough food at home are getting fed. You know that you have a great sewer system and your water is clean and drinkable. And every time we see that breaking down, people start to question what is going on here? How is it that I'm paying this money? And that is not the case. And so that is why I'm so focused on how to deliver good, efficient government. And it's become even more Important right now because we see all the federal tax. The U.S. economy is, I don't want to say imploding. I'm not trying to set off some huge scare, but it is. Every single day Trump is in office, there is some attack on the way we run our economy. And so 22 states are in recession already just since Trump took office. This tariff program is raising costs on everything, and he's enriching himself to the tune of billions of dollars. You really need the state to run well, to continue to deliver opportunity for people. And then as we work in a regional way, so the federal government's not investing in innovation in the way they were just a year ago. We know China, for example, is putting tons of money in innovation, so we're working regionally with Pennsylvania and Delaware on public private partnerships so we can continue on innovation. The new jobs of the future, providing opportunity for people and being competitive even as the federal government's withdrawing from this space. It's why I ran for governor. Governors are so important, so it's really, I think, incumbent upon governors. And my administration is certainly going to do this to run a really good government so that you can say, okay, I am getting bang for my buck. Okay, it's great that there's no taxes down and you name the state, but guess what? You know, nobody's able to get a vaccine there anymore for mmr, for measles, mumps, and rubella. This is a good deal here. So that's why I'm gonna put the budget up, so you can track it and say, oh, here's who holds the contract, here's what we're contracted to do, here's what the state wants us to do, here's how well it's working, and here's the ones that aren't working that either need to be fixed or we need to cut that contract. And I think in too many cases here in New Jersey, and I bet it happens elsewhere, we do this contract and nobody checks in. It's a really good idea. Maybe, maybe we put a contract in to help sterilize the deer population or something, and we think, oh, that's great. And then suddenly we find out, oh, it's exploded. But nobody. We're still just paying this money year after year, so we really have to have accountability. And that's what I have run on, and that's what I intend to do, is make our government accountable, because we don't have money to play with. It's too expensive to live here. Too many families are struggling, and when the state government doesn't deliver on the services, then middle class families pay. And that's what we're seeing too much of right now. Middle class families are just saying, look, I don't know if I can afford to stay here, so I'm going to drive down costs.
- [16:57]
Michael Schreiber
One of the increasing costs for those middle class families is health care. Obviously the Affordable Care act, the subsidies have been stripped to be determined how that's going to turn out in Congress. But it is increasingly falling on the states to fill the gap. Would New Jersey ever pursue like a Massachusetts style state healthcare system? Is that on the table?
- [17:19]
Mikey Sherrill
When I started this race, I looked into how to do this right to provide better healthcare at more affordable prices and what the state could do. And largely even in Massachusetts, it's not working super well because so much of the funding comes from the federal government. It's very hard as a state to operate in an independent healthcare system. New Jersey sends $70 billion more to the federal government than we get back in our federal taxes. The way it's some of it comes back to us is through things like Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security, et cetera. And so that's why this health care issue is so critical. Because we're not only seeing huge cuts to Medicare, we're seeing now, as you mentioned, the Affordable Care act, which will have people's premiums going up by 175%. And so we're gonna see a lot of people who aren't gonna be able to pay that. So suddenly we're seeing this crisis in how people are gonna have access to healthcare. So certainly as a starting point, I'm gonna be working to claw back as much money as possible and continue to hit the government on this so that they make some different choices. Cause I disagreed with some of my colleagues in the Senate. I think we were winning the fight. And I actually think you just saw Van Drew, for example, saying on, I think Fox News, you know, that if they don't do something about healthcare, they're all gonna lose. I would argue Van Drew could have voted to support healthcare, but nevertheless. So I do think there is some recognition in the Republican Party that they're gonna have to make some changes. And I'm happy to work with them to do that. Cause we need more money back for healthcare. At the same time, I've gone to, for example, some of the hospital systems to say, look, how are we gonna start delivering healthcare now in a different way? And don't come at me and say, you're gonna Build an app so people can stay on the rolls of Medicare. That's not going to solve our problems. So one hospital system said, I really think that we can Get K through 12 students an annual checkup in vaccines, basic vaccines, for free. They said, I don't think that would be too hard. It's not the end all, but at least would flag some of the major problems. Right. If you have a kid who has asthma, or if you have a kid who has a heart problem, or if you have a kid who has vision problems, et cetera, you could start to at least do some basic stuff, because otherwise we're just going back to this free fall where unless and until things get really bad, that's when people go to the emergency room. It's the worst kind of care. It gets bad outcomes. It's really expensive trying to think of these new ways in which we drive in healthcare. And it's gonna. I think we're gonna see some seismic changes. And the bad news is right now, I think a lot of people are really scared about how they're gonna get good healthcare and we're gonna lose some of the work we've done in preventative care. But the good news is we need to do better. We were limping a lot, we were getting a little better every year, but we need to do a lot better by people for the money we spend for healthcare and what people are getting. It's never been commensurate with what people deserve. You see the statistics, how we pay more and get worse outcomes than almost anywhere some other places in the world, so we can do better.
- [20:20]
Farnoosh Torabi
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- [24:22]
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- [24:54]
Farnoosh Torabi
We want to talk a little bit about your promise to freeze utility rates. And then we want to talk about your campaign, which was just really hopeful, I think, for a lot of Democrats. And we want to understand from your perspective what the lessons and the takeaways were. But one of your major campaign promises was to freeze those utility rates. Can you share some specifics? Because your critics are saying this is not going to happen, that you don't have the authority to do this. So tell us what's going to really happen.
- [25:21]
Mikey Sherrill
So, and we're already meeting now with utility companies because we're negotiating with them about how much lower we can get rates. And then there's money that comes in through the bpu, the Board of Public Utilities that we're going to use to defray some of the cost. So that's how we're going to freeze utility rates on day one. The second piece of it is a longer term plan to drive utility costs down. And that involves really building an energy arsenal like more power in the system. The fastest way to get more power into our grid is with solar and battery storage. That's not gonna get us the power we need, but it's the fastest and cheapest way we can immediately get some more power into the grid. Some of that's gonna involve cutting through red tape and permitting, getting solar on cap landfills and on rooftops. And there's certain permitting and regulatory problems with doing that quickly, which has really been. And we're an outlier. Other states have moved far more quickly on this and we've left some federal money on the table because we've been so slow to act on this. So that is how we're gonna move that quickly. A more medium term issue is updating and upgrading our natural gas infrastructure. Modernizing the natural gas system can both drive down carbon output and drive up power production. And then in the long term, looking at how we're going to get the nuclear power in place, that's going to be about a ten year plan. But we've got to start now. We have the fourth site in Salem for a full scale nuclear power plant. And there's different ways in which I think we can get some economies of scale. New York, for example, also wants to build nuclear. If we do it along with certain other states, we can drive down the costs and hopefully increase the speed of how we get that done. And then we have. This still is a newer area, what people call SMRs, small modular reactors. Everyone acts like this is new technology. I served on naval ships for years where we've been using SMRs on ships like since the 60s, so it doesn't feel that modern to me. But nevertheless, these can also account for some of it. And we're going to work on some of the permitting for places that have historically had nuclear so that they're comfortable with it. And we can get the permitting and regulatory work done more quickly so we can get those SMRs in place once they're up to speed. And then looking at longer term, unfortunately, wind right now, because of the federal permitting needed and because of the Trump administration feels we can prepare for it with some of the transmission lines, et cetera, that we might need in the future. But right now, it's hard to envision with Trump in office that we're going to be able to do large scale wind. But again, I think with our power needs, we can continue to push for all of the above.
- [27:58]
Michael Schreiber
All right, let's switch gears to national a little bit. Your race and other special elections around the country were considered a bellwether, maybe for the midterms and a repudiation of President Trump. Do you see it that way? What message do you think this outcome for you, for Democrats more broadly, what do you think? What message do you think that's sending nationally?
- [28:21]
Mikey Sherrill
I think this is a really important race to look at, because I think what we saw from the polling that if we had just maybe run a generic Democrat, but maybe a 5 to 7 race or something like that, the campaign that we ran was critical to the results we saw in making sure that we saw all of the communities in New Jersey and we have a really diverse state. So to run a campaign like this, it was important to get in front of everyone. And what we did was both, I think, consolidate the Democratic Party in a powerful way. And I think of what we, when I say we consolidated the Democratic Party, I think of it almost as our traditional roots, which is why I'm a Democrat. Right. Working for working people. So what I look at what we did is we got out working class people across this state, whether it was in the cities or the suburbs or even our more rural areas, really talking about what it was going to take to build opportunity and success. And that appeals to just those key Democratic constituencies, whether it's the black vote, the Latino vote, the non college educated white working class vote. You're talking about people who need government to run well. I always say if you're rich, government can run well or not so well. Right. You can always make other choices. If you're, if they're flooding out some development, you get your landscaper in and get some pipes in and voila, it's working class people who need government to run well because you need your schools to be really good so your kids have opportunity. You need government to get business in here so you have good jobs, you need somebody fighting for you so that all of the money isn't just going to the top, but you have good wages and that you have good workers rights. This is what Democrats are good at. You need to afford your healthcare, you need to be able to afford those basic things that are middle class working people values. And then if we're doing this right, as I'm so focused on, then you have pathways into the working class from some of your poorer neighborhoods or some of areas where you haven't traditionally seen opportunity. You build that opportunity so that you can be in the working class. All of this is what I think when I think of all of the ways I grew up and why I'm a Democrat and what opportunity means to me. This is all why. And that was what we built across the state. And we build it not by telling people, we build it by listening to everyone we were doing. Like at the end of my race, after running for a year and talking to people over and over, we did a 21 county bus tour just so we could make sure that we were not leaving anybody behind or that we weren't listening to what it was going to take to make people successful. And what I heard over and over again was, hey, it's too expensive. I can't afford my cup of coffee or grocery store prices. And I need opportunity. I want my kids to have a great education. I want to have a great job. I want to have a good retirement. I want to know that at some point after working, I'm gonna not work three jobs and end up with nothing. I'm gonna work a job and I'm gonna get to the end and I'm gonna have a retirement. Everybody's gonna be secure. That shouldn't be too much to ask in one of the wealthiest states in the wealthiest nation in the world.
- [31:32]
Michael Schreiber
I hear that. And that's what a lot of people, regardless of what side of the spectrum in the Democratic Party, and frankly in the Republican party too, that's what they're talking about, is helping all of these people that typically get overlooked. And New Jersey is facing all of those issues, whether it's education or cost of living or getting a permit for your small business to open. These are all difficult things. And it's been very hard for members of any party to get these things across the finish line to make sustainable change. I think healthcare is probably the biggest example in this country and the most kind of rip your hair out kind of pants on fire example. And I'm wondering, what's the bridge from hearing these people and understanding what this need is, which we all believe you get to actually making the change and to forcing through some systemic changes, whether it's schools or healthcare or what have.
- [32:27]
Mikey Sherrill
You, I think it's really making bold choices. So I was talking to people about how we needed to drive more energy into the grid and what we were going to do. And yet when I started running on the policy platform, I had people who were saying, mikey, everybody says that. Everyone says they're gonna do this, everyone says they're gonna do that. So I didn't say fake things. I didn't say, oh, I'm gonna like my opponent. I'm gonna cut Your taxes by 30% by finding efficiencies in the budget. And then if you added up all the promises he made, it was actually gonna add 8 or 9% to the budget. I didn't do fakey stuff. And it's interesting because the people that are probably loudest in some of the areas of the press, et cetera, they almost Want you to fake promises. And when you're like, no, I'm not gonna say that they're, oh, she's boring. But what I said was, look, I get it. I'm hearing you. And that's why I said I'm gonna declare a state of emergency. Because it was both a way that people could hold me accountable on day one. Look, on day one, I'm freezing rate hikes. And so people can know right away, hey, was she just full of it or was she serious? So I think they felt like if she's gonna say that, then she's gonna feel compelled to do that. Cause that's a pretty specific thing. So I think people felt good about that. The idea that I come from a really accountable place, I was. I'm a veteran. The fact that I'm a mom, I think lets people know this isn't just somebody that has heard. It's hard. This is somebody who knows exactly what our kids and families have been through. My kids were all in that sort of tough spot during COVID and I know the aftermath of that and I know the mental health issues and I know what's going on with social media and all of this stuff. I think spoke to people. And then I have a record of effectiveness. I, in only my second term in Congress, I was the most effective member of the New Jersey delegation. So I started from a point where people who had worked with me in this area, including quite frankly, a lot of Republicans, knew that when I said I was going to deliver, I didn't over promise. I had a group of mayors that came to me and said, we need a billion dollars for flooding. I said, I can't get you a billion dollars next year. What I can do if we lay out a plan is start to deliver on that. And sure enough, we've had people in the ground on desilting and de snagging the whippany and getting grant money for a whole planning commission and board to get it done. And that laid out the steps so people know that I don't over promise that I do what I say I'm going to do and that I've been very effective and I intend to continue that as governor.
- [34:57]
Farnoosh Torabi
Well, we really appreciate your time with us. We hope this is the first of many visits to the Montclair pod. Governor elect, congratulations on your win. And I guess we'll be seeing you around town.
- [35:07]
Michael Schreiber
Yeah. You're not going anywhere.
- [35:10]
Mikey Sherrill
I know. I'm sorry. You're not getting rid of me that easy. It's all good I appreciate it.
- [35:16]
Michael Schreiber
Thank you.
- [35:17]
Mikey Sherrill
All right.
- [35:18]
Farnoosh Torabi
Appreciate you. Thank you so much.
- [35:19]
Mikey Sherrill
Thanks, guys. Bye Bye.
- [35:24]
Farnoosh Torabi
Thanks so much to Mikey, Cheryl for joining us. It's Thanksgiving week, everybody, and I appreciate you joining me what is probably a very, very busy week for you. I hope you are healthy, happy, looking forward to spending time with loved ones this week. I'll see you back here on Wednesday. And I hope your week is so money.
- [35:57]
Mikey Sherrill
Dear Career Ladder, you've had your moment.
- [36:01]
Farnoosh Torabi
You're linear and one dimensional.
- [36:04]
Mikey Sherrill
Ambition doesn't just go up anymore.
- [36:07]
Farnoosh Torabi
It zigs and zags and squiggles. We're CEOs, executives, founders.
- [36:13]
Mikey Sherrill
We're advising companies, launching side hustles, taking breaks, defining our next act, ambition on our terms.
- [36:22]
Farnoosh Torabi
The possibilities are endless. Chief Lead on join us@chief.com.
- [36:33]
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