June 3, 2021
2:26 pm
State lawmakers are considering piling on hundreds of millions of dollars in this year’s upcoming pension contributions, beyond what Gov. Phil Murphy is proposing, according to several lawmakers and a report by Politico New Jersey.
Gov. Phil Murphy’s budget calls for $44.8 billion to cover state expenses between July 1 and June 30, 2022. Baked into that is $6.4 billion toward the state’s pension bill–which would mark the first time in decades that the state is fully funding its pension obligation.
But with the state flush with cash, lawmakers and state leaders are looking at how they could spend billions of dollars in surplus money. None of the $6.4 billion from the White House could go toward the state’s pension bill, but that leaves a $6.3 billion closing balance of funds that the state could use.
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TRENTON - New Jersey lawmakers on Thursday sent Gov. Phil Murphy a bill to end the public health emergency declared early in the COVID pandemic as a throng of protesters called for lawmakers to do more to limit the governor s powers. Kill the bill, those in the crowd chanted. Murphy is not our king, they shouted, at times loud enough to drown out senators debating the bill inside the Statehouse.
The bill, A5820/S3866, gives the governor power to continue 14 executive orders through Jan. 1, 2022. Dozens of other orders would end 30 days after the bill is signed into law by the governor, which is expected to happen Friday.
The patronage scandal that engulfed the Schools Development Authority two years ago was not an isolated incident of failed leadership, a state watchdog agency has found, but the result of years of inconsistent and questionable management and policies that has led to wasteful property management, costly construction overruns and poor practices to weed out bad contractors.
If the authority does not enact further reforms, the public cannot be confidently assured that the SDA can consistently and successfully serve as a capable and trustworthy custodian of public tax dollars to build schools in New Jersey s poorest districts, the State Commission of Investigation said Wednesday.