PRESIDENT ’ S VIEW
PRESIDENT ’ S VIEW
Breaking Down the State Budget
By Anthony Russo President , CIANJ
On June 29th Governor Murphy signed New Jersey ’ s Fiscal Year 2025 Appropriations Act into law . The State ’ s $ 56.6 billion FY2025 budget provides a $ 6.1 billion surplus to help the State weather future financial challenges .
It also includes a corporate transit tax on companies netting more than $ 10 million a year in revenues , estimated to generate roughly $ 1 billion a year . This 2.5 % coorporate transit tax will be retroactive to January 1 , 2024 . This tax be used to fund New Jersey Transit operations and will be in effect for the next five years .
The Legislature also added $ 700 million more into the final budget to cover a multitude of projects including $ 30 million for mental health initiatives ; $ 45 million for University Hospital upgrades ; $ 30 million for the NJ Sports & Exposition Authority ; $ 9 million for Weequahic
Park improvements ; and other local municipal assistance . The Governor did line item veto the additional $ 14 million the Legislature included for tuition aide grants bringing the total back to the proposed $ 455 million . Breaking down the budget by State agencies , the Department of Education leads the way with $ 21 billion followed by the Department of Human Services at $ 10 billion .
The budget also includes initiatives to advance the Governor ’ s AI Moonshot and augment the AI Hub being created at Princeton University . The funding includes $ 400,000 to fund the AIfocused Global Entrepreneurs-in-Residence pilot program to help international students at New Jersey universities launch cutting-edge businesses ; $ 1.5 million to fund AI education in K-12 classrooms and develop new Career and Technical Education programs targeted to AI ; and $ 2 million to help entrepreneurs build out start-ups related to general artificial intelligence and connect with the AI innovation hub .
It is important to note that the largest revenue sources continue to be the gross income tax at $ 20 billion followed by the sales tax at $ 13 billion and the corporate business tax at $ 4 billion . Other notable revenue sources are $ 600 million from casinos ; $ 400 million from realty transfer tax ; and $ 500 million from inheritance tax . The sales tax exemption for electric vehicles was phased out .
For more information on the budget please visit the New Jersey Legislature ’ s website at https :// www . njleg . state . nj . us / or contact CIANJ .
COMMERCE MAGAZINE
PUBLISHER / CEO
ANTHONY RUSSO arusso @ cianj . org
EDITOR
JAMIE GRILL-GOODMAN jgoodman @ cianj . org
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS JULIA PANGBURN LARRY FELD ADVERTISING SALES
RICH WALTMAN ( 646 ) 808-5114 rwaltman @ cianj . org
TOM WORLEY ( 917 ) -733-5135 tworley @ cianj . org
LAYOUT AND DESIGN
MARJORIE CAMPOLONGO Art Director , mjcampolongo @ gmail . com