New Jersey is facing an estimated $8 billion shortfall between current levels of government spending and current tax collections. Closing that gap will be the governor-elect’s first problem. Last week it was reported, from the usual unnamed sources, that he is considering using the Disaster Control Act, N.J.S.A. App. 9:30 et seq., to declare a fiscal emergency and abrogate last summer’s agreement that the state would not lay off union employees in return for the union foregoing contracted raises for two years. Senate President Stephen Sweeney has independently pointed out that the union contract expressly provides that any financial provision is subject to the Legislature’s power not to appropriate funds.
Since the governor-elect has also made it clear that he is not going to touch urban education funding — a position with which we strongly agree — it looks like he intends to close part of the budget gap by shrinking the state work force and that he has one important bipartisan ally in the Legislature.
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