So what was in Phil Murphy’s new budget?
Here’s your quick hit summary:
- Chris Christie’s final budget ($34.7 billion) was $21.2 billion smaller than Phil Murphy’s second-to-final FY 2025 $55.9 billion proposal.
- Spending is up 60% since Phil Murphy took office in January 2018.
- There’s a $908 million K-12 aid bump in this thing, which the media is touting as an historic “full funding” allocation, but 140 school districts will actually lose funding.
- We’ve heard a ton about the importance of a rainy day surplus, but this budget proposal would see the surplus drop to $6.1 billion from $8.2 billion.
- Notwithstanding taxes rising again (see below), Murphy’s budget includes a $1.8 billion structural deficit and a $5 billion deficit over two years.
- We were told that the corporate business tax surcharge had sunset, but Governor Murphy wants to retroactively tack a 2.5% tax (the “Corporate Transit Fee”) on state businesses effective January 1st. It’s a clear break with his Election 2021 promise to not raise taxes in his second term, and its purposed goal is to save NJ Transit from complete collapse. Good luck.
- Murphy is eliminating the sales tax break for electric vehicles, an interesting departure from his purported goal to see the state’s population of vehicles go all-electric by mid-century.
- He’s also imposing a new $1 tax on warehouse trucks, a tax which will most certainly impact your next Amazon purchase.
- $2.27 billion is the set aside among for ANCHOR rebates all while property tax rates continued to soar in 2023.
- The StayNJ program – Election 2023’s big gimmick – is getting a relatively paltry $200 million infusion.
