New Jersey Citizen Action released the following statement today on the State Senate’s Select Committee hearing on the Economic Development Authority’s corporate tax subsidy programs.

“With this hearing today, the State Legislature has finally joined the discussion about meaningful, comprehensive reforms to the New Jersey Economic Development Authority’s flawed corporate tax subsidy programs,” said Dena Mottola Jaborska, Associate Director of New Jersey Citizen Action. “The policy experts at this hearing endorsed key reforms such as spending caps and time limits, as well as providing evidence that businesses subsidies are not the most effective economic development strategy, or even the only way to attract businesses. We’ve known the programs needed reforms for nine months but so far the Legislature has failed to act. We can’t afford these uncapped and badly managed programs any longer as they will simply further damage New Jersey’s fragile fiscal health and continue to drain money from other programs and services.

“Most of the reforms highlighted today are included in Governor Murphy’s conditional veto of the bill extending the programs. Our Legislature needs to either accept the conditional veto or offer their own comprehensive reform plan as soon as possible. We again call on our Legislature to

• Commit to open and democratic hearings going forward on this issue and all issues. While the testimony today was encouraging it was invite-only, and the public remains shut out of this critical process. The public and a wide range of experts must be allowed their voice, especially on the upcoming hearings on the EDA programs on September 23^rd.

• Cease pushing for program extensions without prioritizing and enacting comprehensive reforms. The blueprint for these reforms has been laid out by the Governor’s conditional veto, by the experts at the hearing today and by advocates.

• Evaluate the total impact of the state’s business tax subsidies on the state budget and make that amount publicly transparent to the taxpayers, annually, along with an expert- verified analysis of the return on investment.”