New Jersey Governors May Soon Have Less Budget Power

Date: August 01, 2018

 

Senate President Stephen Sweeney has a plan to reduce the power of the governor.

Under his proposal, the constitutional authority to forecast and certify state revenues would be taken away from the governor and given to a three-person panel. The panel would contain the state treasurer, the finance officer in the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services, and a third to-be-agreed-upon member.

Currently, the Treasury Department and Office of Legislative Services each prepare an estimate of how much revenue the state will take in as well as how much money can be spent. Despite these two reports/estimates, however, the governor gets the final say over the budget.

Sweeney is proposing this plan because he says politics had been creeping in to what should be simply an analytical process, which then leads to unnecessarily tense and dramatic budget negotiation work. Additionally, NJ.com reported, good government principles and rating agencies recommend that more input and consensus forecasting leads to better accuracy.

To make it official, Sweeney will have to get three-fifths support from the legislature to put the question on the ballot.

Related Content: Small Business News | Economy | New Jersey

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