By Carl Golden Insider NJ
What could have been, and should have been, a relatively smooth path to legislative approval of the proposed 2022-23 fiscal year state budget, one free from controversy and the usual haggling over spending priorities, has — thanks to a remarkable strategic blunder by the Administration — produced acrimony, bruised feelings and a sense of betrayal.
The Administration’s decision to cut the Legislature out of any role in deciding how to spend $3 billion in pandemic relief aid under the multi-trillion-dollar American Rescue Plan roused even the soft-spoken Budget Committee Chairman Sen. Paul Sarlo (D-Bergen) to lecture state treasurer Elizabeth Muoio that restoration of the Legislature’s oversight authority was “non-negotiable,” before budget deliberations could proceed.
Sarlo’s reaction was an extraordinary warning reflecting a sense that Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration had misled the legislative leadership by deleting from the proposed budget language that provided the Joint Budget and Oversight Committee with approval authority over the expenditure of the Federal funds.
The authority was included in the current fiscal year budget but eliminated from that submitted by the governor for the approaching fiscal year.
While Muoio was unable to provide an explanation for the change in the Administration position, Sarlo — with the support of Senate President Nicholas Scutari (D-Union) — made it clear that budget consideration would not proceed until the language was reinstated.
Striking the language providing for legislative involvement in the decision-making process — whatever rationale the Administration may come up with — was a foolish and unnecessary act that could only infuriate the legislative leadership while offering no conceivable benefit to the governor.
It signaled the prevailing Administration view that the Legislature could not be trusted with the authority to decide when and where the federal aid would be disbursed.
It smacked of an arrogance that relegated the Legislature to a subordinate role, a message that the Administration should be the final authority reaching decisions on its own and expecting the Legislature to follow without complaint.
Deleting the language cannot be dismissed as a bureaucratic oversight; its inclusion in the current fiscal year budget is clear evidence that the Administration was well aware of its existence. It required a deliberate decision to single it out and eliminate it, presumably in the belief that it would either not be noticed or, if it was, could be dealt with and explained away quickly and quietly.
It was an astonishingly poor decision, one which might be more likely made by an Administration in its initial year and still feeling its way through legislative relationships.
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