Gov. Phil Murphy Friday signed a $54.3 billion budget for the new fiscal year, passed by the state legislature just hours earlier — on the last day before any further delays would have triggered a state government shutdown.
The rushed proceedings caused confusion about whether the budget math is actually correct and left out any possibility of meaningful public review or comment.
“We’ve been told that there are substantial technical problems with the bill, that the math doesn’t add up, and there will have to be substantial corrections,” said Peter Chen, a senior policy analyst with New Jersey Policy Perspective, a progressive think tank that focuses on budget policy and priorities. “Wednesday night, the budget committees voted on a budget that no one had seen, with a score sheet that might as well have been written on the back of a cocktail napkin.”
Chen says it’s not uncommon for the legislature to clean up the budget bill after the fact, but described this year’s rush job as particularly egregious.
“One of the biggest problems is we can’t be sure that this is actually the budget,” Chen said.
By pushing through the budget at the last minute, legislators left little opportunity for the members of the public, or the press, to read the budget. Legislative committees voted through the budget Wednesday night with no public comment — barely meeting a deadline to let the spending plan come before the full legislature Friday and avert a shutdown.
“This is a serious problem for transparency and the democratic process. The whole idea behind the budget should be that this is the public’s money, and the public deserves to have a say in how it’s spent,” Chen said. “And instead, what happens is we have the public hearings first, then at the 11th hour, the budget bill appears, and then it’s voted on with little to no public comment.”
Gov. Phil Murphy presented his budget proposal to the legislature four months ago, beginning the process of negotiations…
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