Gov. Phil Murphy’s First Budget Message

TRENTON – The following are excerpts from Gov. Phil Murphy’s first budget message delivered March 13 to the Legislature:
First, this budget is realistic and responsible.
This budget totals $37.4 billion and includes a projected surplus of $743 million. It meets our responsibilities for this year and leaves us on a stronger footing for the next. And, I am proud to say, this budget relies less on one-shots than any other in recent memory – less than 1 percent of this budget is non-recurring revenues.
I am also directing my Cabinet to do deep dives into their own departments and agencies to find operational efficiencies that can further improve our fiscal standing and the delivery of services.
Everything in this budget is built around restoring New Jersey as the “good value for money” state we had been for decades. Whether you were born here or moved here later in life, you knew New Jersey was never an inexpensive place. But you knew that by living here or putting your business here, you had a better shot to make it than if you had gone anywhere else.
Not long ago, we proudly invested in education, in reliable mass transit, and in our communities – and we all benefited from the dividends. This budget makes those investments once again, so we will reap those benefits once again, and it does so responsibly.
Second, it makes the critical investments we need for our future.
This budget increases our current investment in public school classrooms by $341 million and begins a four-year phase-up to fully funding our public schools.
Even with these investments, we know our current school funding formula, enacted in 2008, needs to be modernized, and I ask you to work with me to make these changes so we can reach this goal of full, fair funding by the 2021-2022 school year. Together, we can fulfill the promises made a decade ago while ensuring that our dollars are spent according to the needs of students and districts today.
This budget starts New Jersey down a four-year path to expanding pre-K statewide. We will add an additional $57.6 million to build upon the $25 million in new funding the Legislature ensured for this current year for a total investment of nearly $83 million.
Decades of studies tell us that pre-K builds a strong foundation for a child’s educational future. We know it has profound effects on closing the achievement gap. We know it has positive benefits that continue even into adulthood – that every dollar we put into pre-K pays us back many times over throughout that child’s life.
In 2008, the state made a promise to expand pre-K statewide. That promise to our next generation remains unfulfilled. This investment moves us closer to fulfilling it.
Renewing New Jersey’s leadership in the innovation economy starts in our public schools. We will invest in a Computer Science for All initiative to ensure that every high school will have a computer science program. And, by fostering partnerships among K-12 educators, college and university educators, and private-sector practitioners, we will grow innovative, STEM-focused high school programs that will prepare students for the jobs of the future.
And for those who are willing to work toward a college degree, this budget invests in them, putting the dream of higher education within reach of more students and families.
We will increase investment in our community colleges by $50 million, the first step in making community college tuition-free for all over the course of the next three years. From the new high school graduate to the adult returning to school for a new skill, we will make sure that cost is not a roadblock to a good, or better, job.
We will increase funding to the Educational Opportunity Fund, and we will create 3,500 new Tuition Aid Grant awards for students at our four-year colleges and universities. And, to grow the innovation economy, we will establish a student-loan-forgiveness program that rewards those who graduate in a STEM field, get a job in a STEM field, and all the while stay in New Jersey.
Third, this budget will drive New Jersey’s economic growth and ensure that everyone can benefit from its progress.
Each of us knows that New Jersey’s future depends on the strength of our infrastructure.
We were told these tax breaks would nurse New Jersey back to health, and, yet, our economy still lags.
Now, I have been clear that I do not oppose the concept of tax incentives on its face, but they must be distributed responsibly and as part of a broader package of incentives and investments that the state can make to better the climate for all businesses, not just a few favored actors. It needs to be done with precision and accountability, and in alignment with our future aims.
This is one reason why I have directed the State Comptroller to undertake a comprehensive audit of our tax incentive programs. We need to see what we’ve actually gotten in return for our $8 billion. We need to know, what future investments have we missed?
We must do more. Let’s finish the job to raise our state’s minimum wage and put us on a stable and predictable path to $15 an hour. We can no longer tolerate poverty-level wages, not in New Jersey, and not in 2018.
While we may have our own opinions on the matter, we’re going to do this based on fact. And the fact is that increasing the wage is not a social handout – it’s an economic stimulus. Raising the minimum wage will lead to stronger families, greater economic freedom, increased revenues, and decreased costs in the administration of programs for those in poverty, because working families should not earn poverty wages, and neither should veterans.
Raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour will boost the incomes of 1.2 million New Jerseyans, and allow them to participate in the economy with dignity. After all, we know what hard-working families do when they have more money — they spend it in the real economy. Maybe they will be able to take their family out to dinner. Maybe they’ll be able to afford a summer afternoon on the boardwalk.
Maybe, a single mother working two jobs to secure a future for her children can afford to work just one and spend more time with her kids.
Or, maybe, in a state with a poverty rate that is still more than 20 percent higher than it was in 2007, they’ll be able to go home at night without fear of not being able to pay the bills, or the rent.
We will also lead by example by preparing for a statewide increase in the minimum wage to $15 an hour, including an increase to $11 an hour in Fiscal 2019.
Yes, a millionaire’s tax is the right thing to do – and now is the time to do it. 
Let’s be perfectly clear as to what it is we’re talking about. This budget will not raise income taxes on a family earning $50,000 a year. Or, a family making $75,000 a year. Or, a family making $100,000 or $250,000 a year. Or, a family making $500,000 a year. There is no change on a family earning even $1,000,000 a year.
We are standing for fairness and fiscal responsibility by asking those with taxable incomes in excess of $1 million to pay a little more. The irrefutable fact is that we have a thousand more millionaires today than we did at our pre-recession peak, and I’m sure none of them are here for the low taxes. They are here because we can offer an unmatched quality of life.
We will create a new Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit for middle-class and working families. I have heard too many stories of both young families overburdened by the escalating costs of child care and middle-aged couples who have taken on the responsibility of being the primary caretaker for an aging parent or even grandparent. This will give them greater peace of mind and a greater sense of fairness.
We will live up to our promise of providing $7.5 million for women’s health care. Cutting access to primary care, critical health screenings, and family planning services to tens of thousands wasn’t fair, and it certainly didn’t make us stronger. We reversed this, and we will keep our word.
And, we will substantially invest in both preventative and treatment programs that will combat an opioid epidemic that has ravaged communities across our state.
Our future rests in restoring the proper balance between financial value and our shared values. We cannot be a state that, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, “knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
This budget knows what we value most.
We can be both pro-growth and progressive at the same time and with equal effectiveness.
Murphy’s entire budget message is available on the governor’s website: nj.gov