Sources: No plans for Murphy-lawmaker talks before budget deadline

Daniel J. Munoz//June 25, 2019//

Sources: No plans for Murphy-lawmaker talks before budget deadline

Daniel J. Munoz//June 25, 2019//

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Gov. Phil Murphy and the state’s legislative leadership have no plans to meet this week over the Fiscal Year 2020 budget before a June 30 deadline, according to two sources who requested anonymity.

A chart displayed as Gov. Phil Murphy delivers a press conference on the Fiscal Year 2020 budget with policy experts in Trenton on June 21, 2019. – EDWIN J. TORRES/GOVERNOR’S OFFICE

The development Monday comes despite strong words from the governor last week after the Legislature sent him a $38.7 billion budget which did not include the millionaire’s tax, or fees on firearms, ammunition, opioid manufacturers and certain employers whose workers enroll in Medicaid.

“Lots of discussion back and forth,” Murphy said at a press conference Monday in Newark. “I’m thankful for the very high 90-something percent of what we wanted to get funded that we got back from the Legislature.”

Last year, Murphy, Senate President Stephen Sweeney, D-3rd District, and Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, D-19th District, met for negotiations on a daily basis, for hours on end, in what became a bitter budget battle that narrowly avoided a government shutdown when a deal was announced hours before the midnight deadline.

This year, Sweeney has not yet sought any meetings with the governor during this last week before the budget deadline, according to one person, though it is not immediately clear whether Coughlin plans to meet with Murphy this week.

In their 2020 budget proposal, Lawmakers cut out $30 million from the $125 “corporate responsibility” fee on certain employers whose workers enroll in Medicaid, $1.4 million from the proposed firearms fee, $3.2 million from the proposed ammunition fee and $21.5 million from fees on opioid manufacturers.

It also cuts $28.5 million in community college tuition assistance.

Lawmakers nixed the proposed $317 million for the state’s rainy day fund as well, opting to put the money into the now-proposed $1.4 billion surplus, which they argue gives Murphy flexibility with how to use the money.

At a June 21 press conference, the governor flexed his constitutional gubernatorial authority – the ability to line-item veto specific spending priorities in the $38.7 billion budget the Legislature sent him if lawmakers do not approve a millionaire’s tax.

Murphy suggested he could line-item veto “hundreds of millions of dollars in pork spending,” without the proposal to increase the income tax from 8.97 percent to 10.75 percent on every dollar earned above $1 million, and earn the state roughly half a billion dollars.

Indeed, the governor could opt to sign the budget with the line-item vetoes, which the Legislature would have to individually override.

Meanwhile, the governor asserted at the same June 21 press conference that he would fulfill his “constitutional requirement” to sign a budget “within the next nine days,” later saying, however, that “all options are on the table.”