NJ budget signed: what Stay NJ actually looks like now

Trenton made it official Tuesday night, just hours before the deadline.

I have been writing about this budget since March. The Stay NJ cluster on this site has run for months — the argument with Trenton, the benefit cuts, the family history piece about my grandfather Mike and what property taxes threaten to undo, the $200,000 income cap that broke my articles single-day traffic record three days ago. If our analytics say anything clearly, it is this: nothing you have read on this site all year mattered to you more than what happens to Stay NJ. So let's finish the story.

Governor Mikie Sherrill signed a $60.7 billion budget Tuesday night, the largest in New Jersey history, just before midnight. Trenton kept its promise. Kind of.

What Stay NJ looks like now

The program's overall cost drops from $1.2 billion to $742 million. That is a real reduction, not just a talking point. The way it gets there is through income limits and award sizes.

Seniors making up to $100,000 a year can still receive the full $6,500 tax credit. Between $100,000 and $150,000, the credit drops to $5,000. Between $150,000 and $200,000, it drops again to $4,000. Above $200,000, you are out. Under the old law, seniors making up to $500,000 could still qualify for the full $6,500 credit. That door is now closed.

Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, D-Middlesex, who has championed this program from the start, said he was particularly pleased with where it landed. He also said something worth sitting with: it's a myth that everybody is leaving New Jersey. The only group that actually is leaving, he said, is senior citizens — and this program is meant to give them a reason to stay.

That is the entire argument I have been making in this space all year, coming from the Assembly Speaker's own mouth on the night the budget passed.

What else is in this budget

Stay NJ was not the only story. The budget maintains New Jersey's full pension payment and commits $12.4 billion in school aid. Child tax credits go up 25 percent across every income level, meaning families could see credits ranging from $250 to $1,250 depending on income.

The budget avoids new broad-based taxes, but it is not free of new revenue. Two business tax deductions are being limited, and companies with 50 or more workers on Medicaid will now pay a per-employee fee. Republicans were quick to point out that the governor campaigned on not raising taxes and on cutting spending, and this budget, in their view, does neither. Assemblyman Mike Inganamort, R-Morris, said spending actually increased by $765 million over what Sherrill originally proposed.

There is also the usual list of what Trenton insiders call Christmas tree spending — more than $150 million in add-ons for individual school districts, local governments, and other line items scattered throughout the bill. Nine million dollars for Camden County property acquisition. A million and a half for North Bergen's operating budget. A low-interest loan north of $100 million to help Jersey City close a deficit. Every year this happens. This year is no exception.

Should you stay or should you go

The Clash asked the question in 1982. New Jersey seniors have been asking it all year, and this budget does not fully answer it.

If you are under $100,000 in income, Stay NJ just got a little more real for you — the full benefit is protected. If you are between $100,000 and $200,000, you are still in, but for less than you were promised. If you are above $200,000, the state just told you, politely, that this particular reason to stay is gone.

I have spent this year writing about a promise New Jersey made to its seniors and whether Trenton would keep it. The honest answer is: partially. Stay NJ is smaller than it was supposed to be. Fewer people qualify for the full benefit. But it survived, in a year when survival was not guaranteed, because enough people picked up the phone and called their legislators and made enough noise that the program could not quietly disappear.

That matters. It does not solve New Jersey's affordability problem, and nothing in this budget claims to. But my grandfather's generation built something here worth protecting, and this year, enough of us fought to keep a piece of that promise intact.

The budget is signed. The fiscal year starts now. Whether you stay or you go is still, in the end, up to you.