State lawmakers are planning to advance a package of senior-affordability measures, a proposed expansion of New Jersey’s child tax credit and likely a new annual budget during a busy day of committee meetings.
Members of the budget committees in both the Assembly and Senate are scheduled to meet Tuesday in the State House to consider a long list of bills just days before the state’s next fiscal year is due to begin on July 1.
Among them is a proposal in the Assembly Budget Committee that would widen income eligibility for state programs aimed at making prescription drugs more affordable for older residents.
A proposed expansion of New Jersey’s child tax credit is among the many bills up for consideration before members of the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee.
Meanwhile, formal introduction of a spending bill for the 2024 fiscal year is also expected prior to the start of Tuesday’s budget committee hearings.
The Senate’s budget panel is scheduled to meet first on Tuesday, at noon, according to the latest legislative calendar. The Assembly’s budget panel is scheduled to begin its meeting at 1 p.m.
If a new annual budget is not in place for the July 1 start of the new fiscal year, the state Constitution requires government to shut down until a spending plan is enacted.
But Gov. Phil Murphy and fellow Democrats who control the Legislature last week announced a deal on senior property-tax relief that includes an immediate $250 increase in “Anchor” benefits for senior homeowners and renters.
No budget battle this year
That agreement, reached during private budget negotiations, has likely paved the way for a drama-free final week of legislative action in the run-up to the beginning of the 2024 fiscal year.
Earlier this year, Murphy proposed a $53.1 billion budget for the 2024 fiscal year that, among other things, called for increasing state aid for K-12 public schools and fully funding the public-worker pension fund obligations.
‘This is no way to run a government.’ — Sen. Declan O’Scanlon (R-Monmouth)
Murphy, a term-limited Democrat, also called for expanding eligibility for the Pharmaceutical Assistance for the Aged and Disabled (PAAD) and Senior Gold programs and for doubling the size of the state’s newly enacted child tax credit, up to $1,000 per eligible child.
But it’s lawmakers who have the power under the state Constitution to draft and advance an annual spending bill each year prior to the July 1 deadline.
Rushed review
As formal introduction — and public release — of the fiscal year 2024 spending bill was still pending late Monday, Republicans faulted their majority Democratic counterparts for leaving too little time for a full vetting of the annual appropriations act.
In addition to spending more than $50 billion in state resources, the fiscal year 2024 spending bill is also expected to include dozens of new appropriations, such as those funded with New Jersey’s remaining federal COVID-19 pandemic aid, that have also yet to be made public.
“It’s outrageous that we’re going to be asked to vote on a record spending bill tomorrow by the Democratic majority without anyone having seen a copy of the bill yet,” Sen. Declan O’Scanlon (R-Monmouth) said on Monday.
“This is no way to run a government,” O’Scanlon said.
