By Matt Rooney
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You’ve heard that Governor Murphy delivered his reckless $41 billion budget address on Tuesday; on Thursday, with far less fanfare, the Governor’s administration shared its district-by-district overview of its proposed 2020-2021 school aid disbursements totaling $9 billion. Fun fact: New Jersey will spend more on school aid in FY 2020-2021 than nine other U.S. states (including Iowa) spend on their entire budget.
What’s really interesting about the new Murphy budget is where the money is going. Hint: not counties which voted against him.
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6 of the 8 states that voted against Murphy in the 2017 gubernatorial election would lose aid in the Governor’s proposal. Cape May and Sussex counties – two states which have retained counsel and openly challenged Murphy’s sanctuary statehood policy – are the biggest losers (8.4% and 7.8%, respectively).
The Cape May County municipality of Dennis Township (home of newly-minted Republican Congressman Jeff Van Drew) is taking a 17.5% hit.
Somerset County (which just flipped from GOP to Democrat control) is in line for a nearly 10% average increase county-wide.
Red-leaning Morris is getting a slight overall increase (a hair above 3%), but some of its GOP strongholds are getting wHacked.
“Governor Murphy is again asking Morris County families to pay more while returning less of the tax dollars we send to Trenton back to our schools,” complained state Senator Anthony Bucco (R-25). “At the same time, he’s freezing State aid to municipalities while pension and benefit costs are rising. I’m worried that the governor’s budget is a real double-whammy of bad news that’s going to drive up property tax bills for many of our families next year.”
Coincidence?
There are no coincidences, Save Jerseyans.
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