Credit: (Edwin J. Torres/ NJ Governor's Office/CC BY-NC 2.0) Gov. Phil Murphy delivers his pre-taped budget message. State lawmakers have scheduled a series of virtual public hearings starting next week to give residents a chance to sound off on the nearly $45 billion spending plan rolled out by Gov. Phil Murphy last week. The public hearings are usually a matter of routine when a state budget is proposed by the governor, but they were disrupted last year after the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, and lawmakers faced criticism after they held no hearings and accepted only written comments from the public.