Some budgetary diction for our new readers:
A diversionis the taking money that would have gone to a specific fund, and sending it someplace else in the New Jersey bureaucracy.
A raid is taking money already in a dedicated fund's balance sheet, and removing it for another purpose.
A budget session uses both tactics.
Got it? Good. So does today's Philadelphia Inquirer, which outlines some of the budgetary diversions and raids that have come back to punish New Jersey individual and corporate taxpayers in the past, and what the raids in this year's budget could mean.
Transfers in amounts ranging from $2 million to $75 million will be part of votes set for tomorrow.
Critics in both parties say the money shifts - often characterized as "raids" - helped create the state's financial morass. They deplete reserves that may be needed later and usually serve as short-term fixes that leave holes in later budgets.
The most glaring example is New Jersey's unemployment fund, which helps workers when they lose their jobs.
For years the program, supported by taxes on businesses and employees, was flush with cash. Lawmakers and governors tapped it for $4.7 billion, using the money for other spending. But when the economic crisis struck, the program was too depleted to meet rising unemployment claims.
And because of that mismanagement, employers now face a $350 million tax increase to replenish the Unemployment Insurance (UI). What the Inquirer does not mention is that a Constitutional Amendment (SCR 60) to prohibit future raids of employee benefit funds received unanimous support from the New Jersey Senate, but has languished on the desks of an Assembly Committee this year.
So this summer, when legislators make their case as to why they deserve re-election, be sure to ask them if they support a Constitutional lock on TDI and UI, and why they voted for budgets that raided one or both funds.