Sherrill embraces some legislative spending requests in budget negotiations

Gov. Mikie Sherrill defended the emerging framework of her first state budget on Wednesday, embracing a more accommodating approach to lawmakers’ district-specific spending requests while insisting any additions to the $60.75 billion spending plan would be offset by cuts elsewhere.

The governor struck a noticeably softer tone on legislative spending requests, often referred to as “Christmas tree” items, than she has in the past, echoing the perspective she held during her time in Congress. Sherrill argued that lawmakers are often best positioned to identify the needs of their communities and said those projects would not increase overall state spending.

“Many legislators know their districts best,” Sherrill said.

“If you have additions, you need subtraction, so we worked really closely with both houses to find those areas where we could cut back,” she said.

Pressed on where those reductions would come from, Sherrill said the savings were spread across numerous smaller programs rather than concentrated in any single area.

“We looked across a lot of smaller areas in programs that didn’t end up needing as much funding as we thought,” she said.

The governor said she did not know how much of the final budget would ultimately be devoted to district-specific projects or which items had been removed to hold spending at $60.75 billion.

Sherrill also expressed optimism about changes to the Stay NJ senior property tax relief program, which had been a point of disagreement between her administration and Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, one of the program’s chief advocates. Under the emerging agreement, the income cap would be lowered to $200,000, while an additional $100 million would be dedicated to the program with more relief targeted to lower-income seniors.

Sherrill said she believes the revised proposal leaves the program in a stronger position than before.

“We’ve taken it from 500 to 250, and the speaker brought it down to 200 built out the bottom, which I love,” she said.  “So I actually think Stay is in a better place than it was.”

Addressing concerns about whether district-specific projects are an appropriate use of taxpayer dollars, Sherrill pointed to her administration’s new budget report card portal, which is designed to make state spending easier for the public to track.

“That’s why we put out the budget report card, because I know when I was trying to see where tax dollars were going, it was very difficult, like 200 different websites, so we put it all in one place,” she stated.