NJ Spotlight published the following article on April 2, 2014. To read the full article, click here.
OLS: Even After Midyear Cuts, Christie’s Still $526 Million Short
Budget chairman questions retroactive pension cut, tobacco bond maneuver, and need to make cuts year after year
Another year, another $500 million difference of opinion between Gov. Chris Christie’s treasurer and the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services.
For the fourth year in a row, David Rosen, the OLS budget and fiscal officer, warned yesterday that Treasurer Andrew Sidamon-Eristoff’s revenue projections for the current and upcoming fiscal years would come up at least $500 million short — $526 million this year, to be exact.
Rosen’s track record has been good so far: Over the past three years, the Christie administration’s revenue projections have come up more than $1.6 billion short overall, forcing a series of controversial midyear budget cuts topped off this year by a retroactive pension cut and a costly tobacco bond refinancing that Democrats criticized.