The Murphy administration is signaling a more sober approach to spending going forward, tasking all state department heads with finding at least 5% savings in their budgets for next fiscal year.
But state Treasurer Elizabeth Maher Muoio said there’s no need to panic.
“We’re certainly in a much better position than we were before the governor took office in terms of surplus,” said Muoio. “We do have resources to fall back on. But, as we spend more than we take in for revenue, you eat into that surplus and that’s what we want to address.
“We want to make sure that we’re still maintaining a decent surplus while meeting the needs that New Jerseyans depend on us for,” she said.
Republicans like Senate Budget Officer Declan O’Scanlon cite the state’s structural imbalance, where the state government’s spending more than it takes in. That is over $4 billion in this budget, he said.
“Right off the top, you’ve got $2 billion of our vaunted surplus we spent down 25%, from $8 billion to $6 billion,” he said. “Then we stole that corporate business tax, that ‘transit fee.’ We collected over a billion dollars. None of it went to NJ Transit. It was used to balance last year’s budget.”
Administration and Democratic legislators contend Republicans are complaining now after they stood by while previous Gov. Chris Christie ignored the state’s school funding formula, zeroed out social programs, and never made a full pension fund payment.
