By David Cruz
Correspondent
The annual state budget process can prove to be a bit trying on the impatient, what with all the talk of fiscal this and projection that. But with the fate of 34.8 billion of your dollars at stake, it’s actually important stuff. Today, the appearance of staff from the Office of Legislative Services and the acting treasurer marked the unofficial mid-point of the budget process and the virtual agreement on the numbers and lack of incivility was palpable.
The OLS and the governor’s office are within two-tenths and three-tenths of a percentage point of one another on revenue projections over the two-year budget plan.
When asked if this was rare, the Budget Committee Chairman Sen. Paul Sarlo said, “Well, listen it makes our life easier and the last two budget cycles revenue forecasts have been very close, within the margin of error, a few percentage points. That also helps to pave the way for a negotiated budget.”
You may remember it was just last week that Gov. Chris Christie told us what he thought of the office.
“They’re just a tool for the majority and that’s what OLS always has been. When it was run by Republicans that’s what it was, and when it’s run by Democrats that’s what it is and always has been,” he said.
“I respect the governor. I’m going to disagree with him on this point. The OLS is a research group that serves the Legislature. I’ve found them to be a non-partisan group of people. I work closely with many of them,” said Sen. Jennifer Beck.
Still, there are some issues that need to be resolved, mainly the status of the Transportation Trust Fund, the funding of which is still very much in doubt.
“How are we going to fund the Transportation Trust Fund? What is the administration’s thoughts? Clearly, the OLS said there’s a $1.6 billion placeholder in here. What are the details on it? Two hundred fifty million dollar savings on health benefits plans. Nobody’s opposed to it. What are the details? So there’s a couple of big ticket items we’re going to have to [hammer] through over the coming weeks,” Sarlo said.
“If the current situation prevails, then there’s no money to spend on. There is no $1.6 billion in resources for transportation projects going forward,” said OLS Legislative Budget Officer Frank Haines.
But the real budget buster is just over the horizon — 2018 to be precise. If Democrats have their way, and a referendum making quarterly pension payments mandatory passes, the impact on the state’s budget process could be potentially catastrophic.
“We would need to come up with an extra $500 million in fiscal year ’18 just to address the constitutional amendments requirements and that would be pretty much eliminate the discretionary money that we have year to year,” Beck said.
“Well, we haven’t made any such forecasts ourselves. We’ll let that stand as your calculation,” Haines said.
But that’s a potential problem for 2018, when a new governor will be in office and any number of other economic circumstances will be in play. For now, the budget process of 2017 is — while a bit dry — running smoothly.