Avalon Mayor Martin Pagliughi. Photo by Leslie Truluck.

AVALON — Avalon Mayor Martin Pagliughi publicly bashed Gov. Jon Corzine’s (D) proposed $28.9 billion state budget Monday in a lengthy and strongly-worded press release criticizing funding decreases for both beach nourishment and tourism promotion.

Corzine delivered a budget address to the New Jersey Legislature on March 10 during which he announced a decrease in the shore protection fund from $25 million to $18.75 million.

“If the legislature follows the governor’s ill-advised lead and adopts his proposed budget with the axe applied to shore protection and tourism then the borough will have to consider legal action it deems appropriate to keep this issue at the forefront of public consciousness,” Pagliughi said.

Pagliughi described the budget cuts as “legislative tinkering that destroys the original purpose of the laws that regulate funding these two important line items in the state budget.”

“Our governor needs to wake up and realize over 127 miles of his coastline are bordered by the Atlantic Ocean. He also needs to realize that beaches generate tourism and fuel the state’s economic engine,” he said.

The mayor said the proposal is inconsistent with current legislation and has the effect of circumventing “poison pill” provisions with both beach nourishment funding and tourism promotion funding.

Pagliughi said the governor’s plan to drop beach nourishment funding below the $25 million mark goes against the state’s own laws.

According to the release, a 1992 provision was created in the realty transfer tax law that would eliminate the tax if the fund drops below $25 million.

The mayor suggests Corzine needs to eliminate “some of the bureaucracy in his own Department of Environmental Protection he could find the resources he needs to provide safety along the shoreline.”

A planned beach fill project for Avalon, Stone Harbor, Upper Township and Sea Isle City could be compromised in the event New Jersey gets federal stimulus money and doesn’t have the matching dollars needed, he said.

Pagliughi cited the following state tourism-related figures from a report issued in April 2008 by Global Insight:

• Cape May County generates $5.1 billion annually in tourism-related revenue

• 91,000 jobs in Cape May County are related to tourism annually; one out of every nine New Jersey workers owes his/her job to tourism

• Cape May County tourism represents 48.3 percent of the entire share of the entire county’s economy

• If tourism did not exist in New Jersey, each household would have to pay $1,330 more in taxes to maintain current tax receipts
• $38 billion was generated by tourism in New Jersey in 2007

• 466,442 jobs were created by travel and tourism in New Jersey in 2007, which accounts for 11.4% of total employment in the state of New Jersey

• New Jersey tourism generated $7.3 billion in federal, state, and local government taxes in 2007

Pagliughi promised to enlist other county elected officials to fight state leadership to restore these funding cuts.