Expensive Living Costs County Influx of Young Families, COCA Told

CREST HAVEN – Thunder rumbled, and rain poured from the sky April 6 as Dr. Richard Perniciaro delivered an equally dreary forecast about Cape May County’s economic prospects to the Coalition of Civic Associations. 
Perniciaro, Atlantic Cape Community College’s second-in-command, is executive vice president and dean of the Charles Worthington Campus in Atlantic City. An economist and planner, Perniciaro has spent his career looking at numbers and crafting demographic charts for industry and government entities.
In a handout entitled, “Cape May County’s Lost Decade,” Perniciaro highlighted the county’s housing market that, he said, has not recovered from the recession. In 2006, the average home sale price was $560,698, in 2016 it dropped 9.1 percent to $509,656.
In Avalon during that period, the average sale price went from $1.75 million to $1.27 million; in Cape May from $614,911 to $525,776; and in Ocean City from $725,658 to $576,041.
Dark on the islands, he noted, but a better recovery has been charted on the mainland in Upper Township where the average price in 2016 increased 11.3 percent to $367,041 from $329,041. Middle Township has seen a similar uptick, he noted.
In an economic fact of life, Perniciaro pointed to the fact that young families have no reason to move into the county. There are no high-paying jobs, except in health care.
“The shore is so expensive, young families could not afford it,” Perniciaro said.
Few graduating students want to enter the county’s prime industry, tourism, Perniciaro said. Instead, they opt to go where better jobs offer them an opportunity to earn and advance, to raise a family and then retire.
School districts are finding fewer children to occupy seats. Some school districts have opted to remain open, accepting tuition students from outside the district, whose parents either pay or can decide to send their children if it is a Choice school.
“We are running out of children,” Perniciaro said and added, “It’s haunting the college (Atlantic Cape) and Stockton (University.)”
“Graduates coming out of high school are the lowest since 1980 when the number peaked and had declined ever since,” Perniciaro said.
Some island districts, Avalon and Stone Harbor, for example, have merged some of their classes. When such action occurs, Perniciaro said it leads to “contracts and unions and sharing costs.”
West Cape May was a district for which Perniciaro performed a study and recommended consolidating with neighboring Cape May City Elementary. However, the local sentiment overrode the economic advice and opted to retain its school.
Without children in increasing numbers, and economic pressures continuing, “Cape May (County) is going the way we are. Unless there is a reason to move here, it will just continue. Unless there is a reason for young people to move to Cape May County, we will just enjoy our blue-plate specials (a reference to an aging population.)
When there is a “dearth of young people” Perniciaro said it leads to “all problems, drugs, and all things related.”
Perniciaro said he had performed three airport studies since 1986. All sought a way to grow jobs around the airport industrial park.
“You are the end of the extension cord. Transportation is expensive,” said Perniciaro. He pointed to the Cumberland County industrial park, where a seafood producer opted to relocate, in part, due to transportation expense.
“Where does transportation not matter?” Perniciaro asked rhetorically.
Canadian Influence
Asked about the projected tourism impact of Canadian visitors, Perniciaro said he had talked with Diane Wieland, the county’s tourism director who had recently visited the northern neighbor.
“She said 99.9 percent of them said the political issue is not big. There is no travel ban between Canada and the U.S. The U.S. dollar keeps gaining strength, so it’s more expensive here than in Canada, that’s a limiting factor,” Perniciaro said.
He believes Canadian visitors will continue to visit, even though they lose about a quarter of every dollar they trade in when crossing the border.
One problem, Perniciaro cited, is that in peak season, the county’s hospitality establishments are at 100 percent capacity. The only new hotel built in recent years is The Reeds at Shelter Haven in Stone Harbor, he said. When another hotel attempted to build in Ocean City, it could not get required permits.
The only way for the county to increase its tourism business is to fill in the shoulders, he added. The capacity is at a high point, so how do we get more people into the shoulder season? He puzzled.
Jobs
“There are less jobs in Cape May County than there was 10 years ago,” Perniciaro said.
From 2005 to 2016, he provided numbers of total non-farm jobs in the county decreased. Bright spots in the report were in education and health services, which saw slight increases, as did the leisure and hospitality industry and food services.
Government jobs in state and local sectors both declined while federal government jobs remained level locally.
Asked by a COCA member how this impacted Atlantic Cape and planning for a decade into the future, Perniciaro responded, “There are not as many kids graduating high school. That is our primary market. We could offer courses for people who are older. We look at what else you can do to get a higher percentage of a shrinking pie,” Perniciaro said.
“Students come to you and say, ‘What should I learn to get a job when I get out?’ What do you tell them? Where are the jobs, the growth industries? A lot do not want to go into the hospitality program at Stockton,” he said.
He cited one high-tech company that sought, but could not hire qualified people. Similarly, he pointed to a pharmaceutical firm in Buena, Atlantic County where “Eighty percent of the employees were under 30.” Perniciaro asked several of them where they lived; they replied Turnersville, Philadelphia, and Woodbury.
Train for the Market
Another question cited the county’s $50-billion in real estate and the ongoing need to maintain and replace those structures. There is a lack of qualified carpenters, plumbers, and other trades people. Why not train that sector?
“We look at our college that’s undersubscribed, and we look at our Cape Tech that is oversubscribed. What are other places doing to meet such a seeming demand?
Perniciaro said the college meets regularly with the County Technical School District’s officials. He cited construction management, but said, “That’s not a place that wants college grads. Can we do some of that? Yes. Yes, we looked at construction technology and management in a county where there is a quarter of the construction there was 10 years ago. To me, we have to keep chasing these things,” Perniciaro said.
The drone, or unmanned aerial system, industry which the county had placed as a high priority to generate new jobs, is one that the College offers a program, he said.
Not Everybody Wants
As the discussion continued about jobs, Perniciaro said, “Part of the issue in Cape May County is not everybody wants economic development. Some people are not going to like it, about 25 percent don’t like what you are talking about,” Perniciaro said.