Two days after Gov. Jon Corzine hinted to reporters how he plans to address the state’s budget shortfall that has tripled to $1.2 billion, he still won’t provide detail.
On Wednesday Corzine said without specificity he will plug the budget hole with cuts, purchasing delays and renegotiated contracts with private vendors.
On Friday he again declined to describe his plans, but promised to before January.
Corzine, who has met with state employees’ unions wouldn’t confirm nor deny whether he will ask them to forgo a raise this year.
“We had a broad-based conversation,” Corzine said.
Citing the flak California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger got recently for a tax hike proposal, Corzine said he wasn’t looking to increase income taxes.
He did clarify that the $5 billion gap he projected for next year’s budget (the fiscal year beginning in July 2009) included the projection for inflation and growth. The $31.7 billion spending plan for the current fiscal year (the nearly $33 billion approved, minus $1.2 billion for the revenue shortfall) will be closer to $30 billion in fiscal year 2010, he said.
Corzine said he will continue to lobby Washington to approve another economic stimulus program geared toward public works projects during the lame duck session and another after President-elect Barack Obama takes office.
“We need demand, and the only capable expenditurer of dollars at this point is really the federal government,” Corzine said.
The former chief executive of Goldman Sachs couldn’t say how much longer it will be before the deteriorating economy bottoms out.
“I think the economy is in one of thoese periods where it is sharply moving down and people don’t really know where the bottom is,” Corzine said.
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The CWA leadership will , shortsightedly, fight any talk about not taking the 3.5 % pay increase due in the next fiscal year. This will be a huge mistake and a public relations diaster. It will also jeopardize the status of many state workers who will probably be subject to a layoff if the increase is taken .
The majority of state workers , when given the choice of saving their or a co-workers job , or taking a pay increase , would gladly vote to save the job. But the CWA leadership never listens to the rank and file. The CWA leadership gets it huge paychecks from workers dues and they make out better when workers get increases becasue the dues system is based on pay increase percentages.
The voice of the average state worker will not be heard because it will not have a forum. I sincerely hope that the Press does its best to get the opinion of both sides when this critical issue arises. The CWA leadership has its own agenda and it neither asks nor cares about the average New Jersey state worker.