A week from Tuesday, New Jersey voters will elect a new governor.

The outgoing one is pledging to do everything he can to ensure a smooth transition.

Gov. Chris Christie said after the election next week he intends to have a lot of conversations with the winner.

“I’m not going to run a transition like Jon Corzine ran. Jon Corzine and I had two conversations from election night to inauguration day, and quite frankly I think I was lesser for it, and the state was lesser for it.”

Christie added, “I intend to make myself as available as possible to either Lt. Gov. Guadagno or Ambassador Murphy to try to not cement things that I’ve done, but to try to tell them what to expect.”

The governor pointed out taking the reins of the Garden State is challenging.

“Whatever you think when you’re running for governor, when you become governor it is significantly different, right from picking a cabinet and a senior staff, it’s a lot harder than people think it’s going to be.”

He said one of the big issues is money.

“We grossly underpay these people, and it is really hard, almost impossible to over the long term, to recruit people who have not been career government employees.”

He added, “There’s all kinds of things that they have to be ready for that they may not be thinking about right now, and so I intend to talk to them about a lot of things. I’ll certainly talk to them about the opioid issue.”

Christie has spent much of the past year focusing on slowing down the opioid abuse epidemic in New Jersey, and as the head of a national opioid task force created by President Donald Trump.

He said this will certainly be discussed with the governor-elect, “but the bottom line is I don’t think there’s anybody who would be running for governor of New Jersey who would not understand this is a really important issue to the people of the state.”

Christie pointed out he’s already told all of his cabinet members they must complete transition memos by Election Day.

“That’s so whenever the winner names your successor, that you can hand that memo over to them at a personal meeting that I want you to have with your designated successor.”

He said he will take the same approach, holding multiple meetings with the governor-elect.

“I’ll make sure that I’m available to that person and be able to give them advice, some of which will be solicited and some of which will be unsolicited.”

More From WPG Talk Radio 95.5 FM