nj budget

The deadline for a signed and balanced spending plan for the state is midnight June 30 and it still remains unclear if budget talks will be happening.

New Jersey's State Budget must be signed and balanced by midnight on June 30. That doesn't leave much time to find ways to fund many initiatives and there is not a lot of money to go around. Despite that, the top lawmaker in the State Senate promised the new spending plan will help New Jersey's poor.

For the first time in more than two decades, revenue projections from the executive branch and the non-partisan Office of Legislative Services are almost identical.

Gov. Chris Christie has proposed a $33.8 billion State Budget that keeps funding essentially flat for schools, higher education, municipalities and property tax relief programs. But the spending plan will not be adopted as is, because budgets never are.

Gov. Chris Christie says he and the teacher's union finally agree on pension and benefit reforms. The NJEA is saying, 'not so fast.'

Not so fast, the New Jersey Education Association is saying, after Gov. Chris Christie's budget address Tuesday.

For more than a decade, New Jersey has been cash-strapped, to say the least. Assembly Republican Leader Jon Bramnick said it is time for a common sense approach to righting the ship. At a State House press conference Monday, Bramnick announced his summer "Fiscal Sanity" tour.

As he vowed to do, Gov. Chris Christie signed a balanced $32.5 billion state budget into law Monday, but not before he cut two tax increases Democrats inserted to generate revenue to fully fund their year's public employees' pension fund payment.

The full New Jersey Senate passed a $34.1 billion state budget on Thursday, voting along party lines, with Democrats supporting the spending plan, while Republicans voted against it.

Jim has been talking about the "chicken or the egg" argument in New Jersey and who is to blame for the state's financial woes.