New Jersey’s next governor will play a significant role in determining how billions raised from taxes are spent each year via state government’s nearly $60 billion annual budget.

And now the major-party candidates vying to become governor this year also want to enact other budget-related policies that have the potential to reshape how the state budget itself comes together each year, and how approved spending will be tracked over time.

Many of these proposed changes, if enacted, could make it easier for New Jersey residents to see exactly what the governor and lawmakers are doing with the tax dollars they are sending to Trenton, including how much is going to things like K-12 education aid and mass transit, or to other line items favored by individual lawmakers.

Improved oversight of state programs and contracts, as well as the roles and actions of unelected boards and commissions, are also listed in the competing proposals put forward by Republican Jack Ciattarelli and Democrat Mikie Sherrill in recent weeks.

For example, Ciattarelli, a former state lawmaker, is calling for a “cooling off period” between when a final spending bill is drafted by lawmakers in Trenton each year and when the final votes on that spending bill can be cast in both houses.

This proposed reform would ensure “the press, and the public have time to read” budget legislation, “ending the ability of politicians to use the threat of government shutdowns to rush through bloated budgets and pork-barrel spending,” according to an affordability agenda released by Ciattarelli’s campaign.

For her part, Sherrill, a sitting congresswoman from Essex County, is calling for the creation of a “plain-language budget” that would, among other things, make it easier for residents to track changes in state spending over the long-term.

This could include changes coming from the Legislature, which are often obscured in the late-June hustle to adopt a spending bill before a July 1 budget deadline that’s written into the state Constitution.

“These plain-language budgets will clearly show where the money comes from — including taxes, fees, and other revenue — and how it is spent, broken down by program, department, and initiative,” according to a transparency and accountability agenda released by Sherrill’s campaign.

Ciattarelli and Sherrill have put forward their respective proposals at a time when numerous public-opinion polls have detected significant voter frustration with issues related to taxes and the cost of living in New Jersey.

At the same time, voters have also expressed dissatisfaction with how state government is handling the state budget itself.

This includes the results of a public-opinion survey released by the Rutgers-Eagleton Poll in early July that indicated nearly 60% of New Jersey voters were either somewhat dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with the handling of the state budget.

The poll results were released shortly after majority Democratic lawmakers formally introduced a 375-page spending bill and then voted to send it to Gov. Phil Murphy, also a Democrat, all within a matter of days, leaving little to no time at all for public scrutiny.

Democratic legislative leaders also added hundreds of millions in new spending to Murphy’s final draft of the budget in late June, with many of the added line items using state funding to pay for pet projects and other largely parochial appropriations often referred to as “Christmas tree” items inside the State House.

Moreover, the individual sponsors of most of these additions were not disclosed until weeks after the fiscal year 2026 spending bill was enacted by Murphy on June 30.

And which legislator authored one of the most controversial, 11th-hour spending revisions – a diversion of a portion of New Jersey’s opioid settlement funding – remains hidden from public view several months after it was added to the final budget.

Credit: (Steve Hockstein/NJ Advance Media via AP, Pool, File)

Jack Ciattarelli

Ciattarelli’s affordability agenda calls for the aggressive use of line-item veto powers granted to New Jersey’s governor in the state Constitution.

This authority allows a governor to take individual spending items out of the annual spending bill before it is signed into law, all without having to send the full spending bill back to the Legislature as a veto or conditional veto.

Ciattarelli is also calling for an end to “pork spending on pet projects,” an apparent reference to the hundreds of millions in spending majority Democratic lawmakers have tacked onto the annual budget in recent years.

Meanwhile, the cooling off period Ciattarelli is seeking to establish to give more time between when the final spending bill is drafted and voted on by lawmakers would last four weeks, according to his affordability plan.

Under that scenario, a spending bill voted out of the Legislature in late June would have had to have been drafted in early June.

And while New Jersey currently has both a state comptroller and state auditor, Ciattarelli has also proposed the appointment of an “auditor general,” who would also have the power to conduct audits and investigations.

This person would be empowered to conduct a “thorough review of the 3,000 seats on the nearly 500 unelected boards and commissions across the state, with the additional authority to “consolidate, reshape and streamline them with the goal of accountability.”

Mikie Sherrill

In her own plan, Sherrill’s call for the establishment of a plain-language state budget is intended to “allow you to hold our elected leaders accountable” by improving how residents can track state spending from home.

Each year, New Jersey’s Department of the Treasury releases hundreds of pages that detail a sitting governor’s budget proposals. But the legislative additions get far less scrutiny in the flurry of activity that occurs each year inside the State House at the end of June.

The plain-language version of the state budget Sherrill is proposing to compile would be made public “as quickly as feasible” after a budget is passed for the July 1 start of the state’s fiscal year, according to a spokeswoman for Sherrill’s campaign.

Another feature of Sherrill’s proposal, according to the transparency and accountability agenda released by her campaign, would be the ability to track and highlight trends in spending over time.

She envisions this would provide residents with a way to better understand changes in revenue and spending through the years, according to the transparency and accountability agenda.

Meanwhile, Sherrill has also proposed the establishment of “report cards” that would be used to divulge the true cost of individual programs and contracts to help provide taxpayers with “evidence-based information on what they deliver for New Jersey communities.”

“The focus will be on rigorously evaluating the impacts and returns on investment of state-funded programs and providing this information to residents in a transparent manner,” according to her transparency and accountability agenda.