Money from parking fees, dining and housing, conferences and events, and athletics has all evaporated because of bans on large gatherings, shifts to remote working and virtual learning, and widespread physical distancing has kept the majority of students and university staff off-campus. 

Gov. Phil Murphy’s $45 billion spending plan calls for $6.4 billion in payments to the pension system, the full amount actuarially recommended for the state, and the first time it would be allocated for in full since 1996.

With the state’s coffers flush with cash and avoiding some of the dire financial straits that state officials predicted a year ago as the pandemic began to take hold, the governor presented a spending plan without proposed tax or fee increases.

The governor's plan does not raise the cost of rides. Instead, the statewide commuter agency will rely on raids from its capital project funds and a clean energy fund.

State officials estimate 760,000 New Jersey families could benefit from the new break which stems from an agreement on the millionaire’s tax brokered last summer by Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, D-19th District.

The governor wants to give $50 million more toward a “Main Street recovery” financing program to help mom and pop shops. Administration officials expect a litany of other programs to start having an impact on the state’s finances as soon as the 2022 fiscal year begins.

Revenue for the near future will comprise mainly of licensing fees for an industry that is facing a myriad of hurdles in building facilities and growing industrial quantities of product.

Businesses are in store for some economic assistance as the governor will lay out a new spending plan with ways to help them bounce back from the pandemic.

“This is a day toward which our entire staff has been planning, working and looking forward to for the past 11 months. Those who enter the building will feel confident that our process and protocols are focused on making their safety the number one priority," said New Jersey Devils President Jake Reynolds.

After three years of back and forth discussions, the governor signed a trio of laws making good on his campaign promise.

Sole proprietors, independent contractors and self-employed individuals, applicants with non-fraud felony convictions or arrests in the past year, those who are delinquent on their student loans, and non-citizen business owners - like green card holders - can now take part in the program.

A program expanded to eight of the state's poorest cities will be aimed at helping to keep Black and Brown-owned businesses they say have been left out of federal COVID-relief programs afloat.