GREENWALD, SCHAER APPLAUD GOVERNOR'S CALL FOR BUDGETARY CONTINGENCY PLANS

GREENWALD, SCHAER APPLAUD GOVERNOR'S CALL
FOR BUDGETARY CONTINGENCY PLANS
With State in Eye of Wall Street Storm, Contingency Plans 'Absolute Necessity'

(TRENTON) - Assemblymen Louis D. Greenwald and Gary S. Schaer today voiced their support for Governor Jon S. Corzine's decision to ask his Cabinet to create budgetary contingency plans that could be implemented should the deepening national financial crisis put the state's recent fiscal gains in jeopardy.

"New Jersey turned the corner this year with a budget that forced state government to tighten its belt," said Greenwald (D-Camden), chairman of the Assembly Budget Committee. "However, with the current economic crisis, the Governor is right to ask for contingency plans to safeguard New Jersey from losing ground it fought so hard to gain. Structurally, the state may be in a better financial position today than it was a year ago, but the mess on Wall Street and its effects on the economy are unchartered ground."

The Fiscal Year 2009 state budget - which took effect July 1 - cut overall spending by $600 million and shrank the size of government by roughly $3 billion. The budget set the record for the largest one-time budget cut in state history, and marked only the fourth time in the last half-century that state spending actually decreased from one year to the next.

At a morning press conference where he signed into law a sweeping set of public employee pension reforms, Corzine noted that he asked his Cabinet on Aug. 20 to produce contingency plans that could further cut state spending by 5 percent over the remainder of the fiscal year.

"Just as businesses plan for the unknown, so must the state," said Schaer (D-Passaic/Bergen/Essex), the budget panel's vice-chair. "Hopefully, New Jersey will emerge from the current economic storm relatively unscathed. But asking state officials to take steps and plan for the worst is an absolute necessity, and a decision for which the Governor should be given credit."

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