| Property Taxes, School Funding issues | ||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||
Turning up the heat on state budget pork
Lawmakers' add-ons face public scrutiny
Thursday, June 14, 2007
BY DUNSTAN McNICHOL AND JOE DONOHUE
Star-Ledger Staff
New Jersey lawmakers boosted the proposed state budget by $189.2 million yesterday, adding millions of dollars for pet projects like the Paper Mill Playhouse and an oyster cultivation program and setting the stage for unprecedented public hearings on the budget.
Shadowed by an ongoing federal criminal investigation into the budget add-ons made in closed-door, late-night sessions in years past, lawmakers for the first time posted their proposed budget changes online and scheduled public hearings on the completed spending plan, which is now $33.5 billion.
"This is a clear departure from the old way of doing business," Senate President Richard Codey (D-Essex) said. "For the first time, the public will have a chance to fully examine these requests and the end result will be a dramatic reduction from previous years."
The new budget process stands in stark contrast to last year's budget process, when a standoff with the Legislature prompted Gov. Jon Corzine to shut down state government for a week, culminating only after an overnight, closed-door session in which lawmakers added more than $300 million in pet projects to the final budget.
The tiny South Jersey community of Lawnside helps illustrate how the process has been changed.
With native son, Sen. Wayne Bryant (D-Camden), serving as chairman of the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee, Lawnside collected more than $2 million in special budget grants, winning state funds for a firetruck, a new salt shed and park improvements in recent years.
But Bryant was stripped of his budget posts last year and has been indicted on charges that he misused his public post to win personal salaries. This year, Bryant sought no special budget grants, and Lawnside got no special state funding.
"I don't think we put in for any grants this year," the borough's administrator, Jesse Harris, said yesterday. "I'm sure this will be a problem. I can't tell you what kind of problems there are going to be."
Other lawmakers seeking grants for local projects were also denied.
Assemblyman Gary Schaer (D-Passaic), a budget committee member who also serves as a councilman in Passaic, had sought $2.5 million in emergency tax relief for the city and another $1 million for improvements to a city library, but both requests were denied.
Similarly, Assemblywoman Joan Voss (D-Bergen) was unsuccessful in seeking six grants, totaling $143,000, for local items like a leaf remover in Hasbrouck Heights and a $10,000 emergency generator for the Little Ferry police.
Assembly Budget Committee Chairman Louis Greenwald (D-Camden) said lawmakers were more amenable to budget add-ons that were not strictly local.
"Regional and public policy grants have always taken preference and dominated the process," Greenwald said.
For example, he said, a $300,000 grant to the financially struggling Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn should be viewed as a regional initiative, not a local favor.
"It's not where a building is located," Greenwald said, noting the playhouse draws patrons from throughout the northern part of the state.
There were 651 proposed changes -- offered by legislators and the administration -- to the budget proposed by Corzine in February.
In all, the amended budget lawmakers plan to formally introduce today includes at least 85 new grants steering about $42.3 million in special grants to places like the Montclair Art Museum, the Battleship New Jersey and the Edison Symphony Orchestra.
Far more expensive changes benefited hospitals, school districts and local governments.
Under amendments to the original budget, the proposed spending plan now includes an additional $17.25 million for cancer research and a $109 million boost in aid to hospitals that serve indigent patients.
State aid to local governments rose by $59 million, including $21 million for Trenton and $17 million in additional targeted aid.
Aid to schools rose by a total of $58 million, including an additional $48 million in aid to the 31 communities covered by the Abbott v. Burke lawsuit over public school funding. New language added by the Corzine administration also imposes income limits on the families eligible for free pre-school ordered as part of the lawsuit.
Besides the new, open hearings and accelerated budget timetable, the effects of recent state scandals can be found elsewhere in the revamped budget document.
Among the new footnotes added to the budget bill are one that imposes new financial controls on the University of Medicine and Dentistry, the subject of a sweeping federal investigation.
Another that authorizes the state Health Commissioner to keep tabs on the charity care system of hospital subsidies. A State Commission of Investigation report earlier this year suggested the program was bilked out of millions of dollars by patients who tapped its free hospital services when they actually had the resources to pay for their care.
The new process was celebrated by lawmakers involved, including Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts (D-Camden).
"This year's budget process has been unprecedented in terms of openness, accountability, and public input," he said. "New Jersey's residents have a right to know how lawmakers propose to spend their tax dollars."
Staff Writers Robert Schwaneberg and Susan Livio contributed to this report.
$33.5 BILLION BUDGET
Legislators reshape budget to boost aid to hospitals, others
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 06/14/07
BY JONATHAN TAMARI
GANNETT STATE BUREAU
TRENTON — Lawmakers scouring the budget for ways to meet needs at hospitals and eliminate additional costs for Medicaid recipients, as well as fund a few pet projects without raising taxes, found $65 million by raiding a program that helps pay for senior citizens' prescription drugs.
They also plan to slice $10 million from a rental assistance program and nearly $44 million from school construction and renovation projects, according to budget documents released Wednesday.
The money will be redirected to causes such as increasing aid for adults seeking high school diplomas ($10 million), charter schools ($4.7 million), open space preservation ($25 million) and cancer research ($24 million). Hospitals will get an additional $129 million in reimbursements for treating the uninsured and for graduate medical education.
Assemblyman Louis Greenwald, D-Camden, chairman of the Assembly Budget Committee, said the programs losing money had more funding than was needed to meet demands for the year. He said "not one person" who uses the prescription drug program would see a benefit cut.
"If there is money that is languishing in an account that isn't being spent, that means the account is overfunded," Greenwald said. "That money is going to be left over. If it doesn't get spent on anything, then that's a waste."
By shifting funds within the budget, Democrats were able to increase spending without raising taxes or eating into the state's $600 million surplus.
Hospitals, saying many are facing financial distress, had clamored for additional aid to offset the costs of treating the uninsured. Proposed copays for Medicaid were also deemed unpalatable after Gov. Corzine included the ideas in his spending plan in February.
According to details of the budget released Wednesday, the deal Corzine and Democrats have reached would set the fiscal year 2008 budget at $33.5 billion, about $200 million more than Corzine first proposed and about $2.7 billion larger than the spending plan approved last July.
Much of that increase will be dedicated to an enhanced property tax rebate program.
Corzine said he expected changes to his original proposal.
"We almost always know that what you submit to the Legislature is not going to be exactly what you get back. And there has been some changes in that, but I think this is very, very small relative to historic additions of any kind," Corzine told reporters in Atlantic City. "We were pretty well expecting that there was going to have to be more money going to hospitals, and that's where the bulk of the increase has been. And I'm sympathetic to that."
