New Jersey Acting Comptroller Kevin Walsh also criticized the late inclusion of language in the budget that seemed to be designed to block the state’s Department of Human Services from limiting funding to Jersey nursing homes that get poor marks on inspections.
Republicans also voiced anger about the budget approval process and the lack of time lawmakers had to review the more-than-300-page document. Committees in both the Senate and Assembly approved the budget bill late Friday evening.
The Democratically controlled legislature then approved the spending plan on Monday, along with 139 other bills. The session took several hours, and while lawmakers had an opportunity to speak about different elements of the budget, the entire process was rushed, without an opportunity for dialogue and discussion, critics said.
Micah Rasmussen, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University, said pushback of the budget process was well placed, because the details of the budget were not made public until the last minute.
“People are right to be concerned,” he said. “You could not actually see what was in the budget, it wasn’t something that reporters could report on, and if you can’t see what’s in the budget you can’t respond to it, you can’t let your lawmakers know what you like about it, what you don’t like about it, how it’s going to affect your life.”
He said if lawmakers wanted to change the budget process and allow more time for detailed analysis and discussion, they could do so.
“There is not a will to do that,” he said. “They don’t focus on it until it’s too late in the process, and what that means is we wind up without a meaningful way to have public participation.”
State Sen. Tony Bucco said the current budget process is not working.
“This rushed, opaque budget charade is exactly why New Jersey is in the fiscal mess it’s in,” he said. “There’s no accountability, no long-term planning and absolutely no transparency, just last-minute deals and political favors pushed through at night while taxpayers are asleep.”
He said Democrats ignored members of the GOP on budget-related issues and discussions.
“Giving Republicans a seat at the table isn’t a political courtesy, it’s a benefit to all New Jerseyans,” he said. “At this point the wheels of state government aren’t just coming off the bus, they’ve been shooting sparks off of the chassis.”
Rasmussen said the same type of secret, last-second budget negotiation process has taken place historically no matter which political party controlled the legislature, but that the lack of transparency seems to have gotten worse in recent years.
He said having little time to review the budget “is nothing new, but the idea that there would not be a budget document to even look at, to evaluate, that is new and that is an abuse.”
“We don’t really get our government to focus on things until it’s a crisis,” he said. “It is not limited to this budget, it is not limited to this year, government doesn’t tend to focus on things until there is no choice, until there is no time left on the clock, and then you can’t expect a deliberative process to unfold.”