state budget

Sen. Michael Testa said that in addition to the federal aid, the state has to decide how to spend $4.3B from COVID emergency borrowing that wasn’t truly necessary and can’t be repaid early because of the way the debt was structured.

After being told repeatedly there's no money for their cause, advocates for COVID aid to unauthorized immigrants say there's now state and federal cash to use.

State revenues are now expected to surge to all-time highs, far exceeding any previous forecasts, staking the state government to an unprecedented surplus topping $10 billion to close out the current fiscal year this month.

Lawmakers have begun advancing a plan offered by Gov. Phil Murphy in the proposed budget to expand income eligibility by $10,000 for PAAD and Senior Gold.

State officials anticipate adding hundreds of millions of dollars to the state’s revenue forecast, but the good news for the budget will have to wait a few weeks because the tax filing deadline had been delayed to Monday, a month later than usual.

The Murphy administration forecasts that it will end the current fiscal year with a combined surplus of $6.34 billion, but its 2022 spending plan uses much of that to offset spending.

NJ’s budget is balanced in part through nearly $4.3B from emergency borrowing authorized in response to the coronavirus pandemic, but a nonpartisan budget analyst says it’s now clear that wasn’t necessary.

After interest-only payments are made in 2021 and 2022, yearly payments are expected to be slightly more than $500 million for the 10 years that follow.

A small group of protesters blocked a street in Trenton as they continue advocating for state aid to help undocumented immigrants during the pandemic.

In the end, it took a worldwide pandemic – plus a plan for $500 checks to middle-class families in an election year – to get a millionaires tax back on the books in New Jersey.