About 20 minutes before a midnight procedural deadline to advance New Jersey’s now $54.3 billion Fiscal Year 2024 state budget plan, the Senate Budget & Appropriations Committee approved the measure on a party-line vote June 28.

The tense, dramatic moment followed several days of last-minute tweaks, negotiations, starts, and stops in Trenton as the budget bill came down the home stretch. The Assembly Budget Committee advanced the legislation – also in the 11 p.m. hour and on a party-line vote – moments before the Senate panel did the same.

At that point, Assembly Bill 5669/Senate Bill 2024 was still not public, and lawmakers had only received score sheets.

The negotiated agreement between the Democrat-controlled Legislature and Gov. Phil Murphy’s Administration is $1.2 billion higher than the original $53.1 billion proposal revealed in February, even as revenues have softened in recent months. It also includes $26.1 billion in federal funds. Despite reaching that understanding earlier in the week, the approval process played out in a frenzied and disjointed way at the State House, ending in a race against the clock.

Republicans blasted the process ahead of the vote.

“To be clear, and the public deserves to know this, the 9-million-plus New Jerseyans deserve to know that we still don’t even have a full budget document at this point,” said Sen. Michael Testa, R-1st District. “We have some score sheets that we’re told may not even be 100% accurate. But we know this much. There are almost 100 special line items in this budget and balances from prior year special line items that the governor proposed and that he has continually refused to explain how the funds will be spent.”

Testa continued by questioning whether his counterparts on the other side of the aisle had seen a full budget document.

“Because my caucus hasn’t seen a full budget document,” said Testa, reiterating that they had only seen score sheets that may be inaccurate.

“We’ve seen a full budget document,” Senate President Nick Scutari, D-22nd District, rebutted. “And accuracy is in the eye of the beholder.”

“It’s really unfair that here we are, quite literally, in the 12th hour — not the 11th hour,” Testa said. “In the 12th hour when we were asked to be here at 3:00 p.m. today. We were here all day yesterday. And now we’re out here at 11:33, for the record, being asked to vote on a budget that we haven’t even fully been able to digest because we haven’t been able to see it other than some score sheets.

“I just think that the public is starving for accountability and transparency,” he continued. “And where are either of those things at this point in time? And I’m venting my frustrations a bit because we’ve been here so long for the past couple of days. But this is just a preposterous process that can’t continue. New Jersey deserves better than this. My vote is no.”

Senate Republican Budget Officer Declan O’Scanlon, R-13th District, followed Testa in voicing his frustration with the process, pointing again to the aforementioned score sheets.

“And we just heard that the budget number put on the record tonight is $1 billion more than the score sheets we were given. Come on. You’ve got to realize that is frustrating to us and should be frustrating to the people of New Jersey,” said O’Scanlon. “And that fact that we’re now 26 minutes away from a government shutdown is astounding when this should have been done two weeks ago. I know you aspire to do that. It didn’t happen. We need to do better next year, and we need to make that statement.”

Senate Majority Leader Teresa Ruiz, D-29th District, who was handling chair duties in place of the absent Senate Budget Chairman Paul Sarlo, D-36th District, countered Republicans and defended the budget plan.

“Any budget is a product of compromise. And this one took, quite frankly, a little bit longer than we expected,” said Ruiz. “You’re saying that we’re not doing what is intended to be done to secure the safety of the fiscal future of the state. But, quite frankly, there’s a surplus in this budget that’s precisely going to do that in the future. I vote yes.”

The advance of the bill through committee sets the stage for a full vote in both chambers Friday before heading to the governor’s desk to be signed into law, ahead of the new fiscal year, which begins Saturday.

Stay with NJBIZ for further breakdown and analysis of the budget bill, which finally dropped on the state legislative website overnight, as more is learned leading up to the Friday vote, along with full reaction.