Governor Mikie Sherrill administered tough medicine to the legislature this afternoon, submitting a budget in the name of serving "families who sent us here to fight for them," and deriding a history of Trenton Democrats and Republicans who have failed to prioritize the people of New Jersey.

She blamed President Donald J. Trump for making matters worse but would not shirk from the underlying in-house fiscal problems in her home state.

Even so, the proposed $60.7 billion state budget sets a size record, as it increases spending on public education and mass transit and makes a full pension payment, while - in the words of NJ Spotlight News' John Reitmeyer, "grappling with a significant structural budget imbalance."

The budget, the Governor said, includes a proposed surplus of $5.4 billion, while redirecting over 74 percent of the total budget back into our communities in the form of grants-in-aid for property tax relief, social services, and higher education, as well as state aid to schools, municipalities, and counties. The budget takes crucial steps to rein in costs by nearly $2 billion, she maintained. While the last 8 budgets increased almost 7 percent annually on average, this budget is 1.6 percent above the FY 2026 adjusted appropriation.

As reported last week by InsiderNJ, the Governor in her budget reins in Stay NJ, which she described as a "great program."

"It keeps seniors, so often living on a fixed income, in their homes. But it benefits households that make as much as 500,000 dollars a year. I'm changing that, to safeguard Stay NJ for middle class seniors. If you make 250,000 or less, your tax relief is in this budget.  That’s going to save taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
And we’ll target more relief to low- and middle-income senior renters, through the ANCHOR program. That’s a fairer, more efficient use of taxpayer money."

Key contextualizing moments came early in the speech by the Governor:

"The Trump Administration is recklessly slashing critical programs –from healthcare and housing, to food aid and foster care, schools and infrastructure," Sherrill said. "And yes, Trump’s massive cuts are blowing an immediate hole in our budget, hurting New Jerseyans. At the same time, the covid-relief money is ending. Six years of emergency cash flooding in from Washington helped to paper over our very real fiscal problems. Meanwhile, costs everywhere keep rising. It’s hurting families’ wallets – and increasing costs the state pays to provide healthcare, to fund schools, and to buy the utilities and services needed to serve New Jerseyans. Trump’s devastating cuts. Covid relief drying up. Costs continuing to rise. Those things have all collided to put us in this position.

"But we also have to face the fact that for decades, previous administrations have allowed for business-as-usual in Trenton, and failed to find any real and solid fiscal footing," the Governor added. "There have been too many one-offs. Too many temporary fixes. Too little willingness to challenge what’s always been done. As a result, the state budget has doubled in size since 2010. Utility rates have skyrocketed, and leaders were slow to respond.

"School funding has soared, but too many third graders still read below grade level, and kids’ mental health keeps getting worse. Just look how pensions have been mishandled. This year, we’ll spend over 7 billion dollars to fully fund our state pension system. New York, in comparison, spends 2 billion. New Jersey owes nearly 6 billion a year in back-payments – because for or 30 years, other administrations, Democratic and Republican alike, simply refused to pay our bills.

"I give Governor Murphy and many of you here a lot of credit for resuming those payments. But if others had done their jobs – if they’d honored the promises made to public workers – we’d be paying 6 billion dollars LESS per year now."