State of New Jersey

Department of the Treasury

For Immediate Release:                                                           For Information Contact:
May 19, 2009                                                              Tom Vincz
(609) 633-6565

FY 2010 Revenues, State Budget Updated

TRENTON – State Treasurer David Rousseau delivered the following opening statement and presentation on the FY 2010 Budget to the Assembly Budget Committee today.

 

Opening Statement
State Treasurer David Rousseau
Assembly Budget Committee
May 19, 2009

Mister Chairman, in FY 10 we face the most daunting challenge of any budget in State history. Our revenues reflect the harsh realities of a national economy in turmoil. Conversely, our spending needs have never been more acute as we seek to counter the effects of the downturn on our citizens.  Our citizens need us to solve a fiscal problem that simply defies comparison to any previous crisis.

Correspondingly, we face some of the most difficult choices ever on how to fulfill our constitutional obligation to balance the budget. While difficult, the choices we have made to balance the FY 10 budget are true to the values we share – values that the Governor detailed when he proposed this budget in March:

To invest in educating and providing health care for our children.

To protect those who are most vulnerable, especially those who have been hardest hit by the national economic crisis.

To ensure that senior citizens can keep the homes where they’ve raised their families.

At the same time, we are working to reduce the property tax burden and create jobs that will help spur recovery.

Of course, we would like to fund these core priorities at levels above those proposed in this budget. However, we simply cannot spend money we don't have.   So we have had to make even deeper cuts to a budget that already included billions in reduced spending.

To put things in perspective, we will be spending about $9 billion less than we otherwise would spend to more fully meet New Jersey's priorities and fully fund programmatic formulas.  Since we have $9 billion less than we need to fund these priorities -- and since three quarters of our budget takes the form of grants and aid that goes back to New Jersey residents, businesses and communities – it makes our choices even tougher.

While this administration is spending more on homestead rebates and direct relief programs  -- by far -- than any administration before it -- $6.5 billion, our fiscal limitations require us to reserve rebates, for this year only, to eligible senior citizens. Even so, we note that our other efforts to limit the growth of property taxes have taken hold.  Our caps on tax levies are limiting increases and stemming the rise of property taxes on overburdened New Jerseyans.   In 2008 the average growth of the property tax bill was 3.7 percent, the smallest increase in a decade.

This budget still builds off of this progress by dedicating half of all spending on property tax relief, including the preservation of funding increases to education, which will offset the largest slice of the property tax bill.

FY 2009 - FY 2010 UPDATES