Testa, Senate Republican Caucus to Vote ‘No’ on Furlough Legislation

TRENTON – The four Republican members of the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee panned Gov. Phil Murphy’s recommended changes to legislation approved by the Legislature, with broad bipartisan support, in mid-May, that would have allowed the state to more easily and quickly furlough nonessential public employees while they were unable to work with the federal government picking up all of the tab of unemployment benefits.
The members, Sens. Steven Oroho (R-24th), Samuel Thompson (R-12th), Declan O’Scanlon (R-13th), and Michael Testa (R-1st), issued the following joint statement before the July 2 Senate session.
“Like many aspects of Gov. Murphy’s response to the coronavirus crisis, his delayed action on furloughs is too little, too late,” the statement began. “By failing to enact the original legislation when it passed the Legislature in May, with overwhelming bipartisan support, he left hundreds of millions of federal dollars on the table. Even worse, the cost of furloughing workers going forward will be paid almost 100% by New Jersey taxpayers when the cost of the original bill would have been picked up entirely by the federal government. To say the governor’s inaction represents a missed opportunity would be an understatement.
“Additionally, what the governor has proposed to do this late in the game makes no sense. He should have taken our advice and furloughed State workers two or three months ago when much of the economy was shut down, including government offices. By doing so, he could have reduced the State payroll significantly, reducing the budget crisis we are now in.
“Many of those workers who were getting paid their regular salaries to not work could have made more if furloughed for several months when their offices were closed with the extra $600 of weekly federal unemployment benefits available during that time.
“Instead, the governor now wants to rush to furlough state government workers as the extra federal unemployment benefit is expiring, and just as many New Jersey government offices have begun to reopen facing a backlog in citizen needs.
“After months of being closed, you only need to look at the massive lines at newly reopened MVC agencies to understand that this is a really bad idea. For those reasons, our caucus will have to vote ‘no’ on the governor’s irresponsible furlough plan.”