GREENWALD STATEMENT ON OPENING
OF STEPPED-UP BUDGET REVIEW PROCESS

(TRENTON) -- Assembly Budget Committee Chairman Louis D. Greenwald issued the following statement at his panel's opening meeting where members took testimony from State Auditor Richard Fair on his office's continuing work to identify potential cost savings and operating efficiencies that might help alleviate the state's anticipated FY07 budget shortfall:

Last week, Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts took the unprecedented step of directing this panel to initiate a detailed review of state spending practices prior to the Governor's anticipated budget message in March.

This process would closely mirror the unprecedented level of scrutiny that this committee exercised in last year's budget review process.

That bipartisan and exhaustive effort helped to identify hundreds of millions of dollars in savings and efficiencies that could be utilized to boost direct property tax relief for our residents.

Citing that very successful experience, Speaker Roberts directed this committee to hold as many meetings as necessary to identify fiscal actions that would help the state reduce spending and maximize the delivery of property tax relief.

This is the first of what I hope will be a series of productive and insightful meetings to carry out the Speaker's directive.

It is imperative that we undertake this mission.

Although the current-year budget is on a course to meet its $600 million end-of-year surplus projection, the state's next fiscal plan poses new challenges.

Estimates of the shortfall for the FY2007 budget range from four to six billion dollars.

A deficit of this size may not be unprecedented, but the state has fewer options at its disposal this time to fill the gap between what it expects to spend and what it anticipates to collect in revenue to cover the costs.

There are no magic bullets.

And there certainly is no free lunch either.

The reality is that this budget situation demands us to begin our work much sooner than in previous years.

That is why we are here today.

The budget realities confronting us also demand that we use whatever means possible to forge remedies that might reduce spending, contain costs, or improve government efficiencies.

One tool that we intend to use is the Internet.

It is my privilege to announce today that a new Web site has been established to help this committee gather ideas and suggestions from the public that could help this state save money.

The new site is www.njbudgetcuts.com.

For the moment, the site will have a form that visitors can fill out to recommend cuts and efficiencies.

Visitors will have the option of making suggestions anonymously or by identifying themselves.

Once this site is fully operational, it should have other features to help people follow the budget review process and the work of the members of this committee.

Before I close my remarks here, I want to acknowledge the cooperation, assistance and input that my distinguished colleague -- Republican budget officer Joe Malone -- provided during the last budget cycle.

He and I have spoken about this renewed urgency to identify potential spending cuts and efficiencies.

He and I agree that this should not be a vehicle for scoring partisan points or advancing a political agenda.

This process should be about one thing: doing our jobs the best that we can on behalf of the taxpayers we ultimately serve.

Last year, some people attempted to portray this committee's work as an adversarial project.

I want to state here from the outset that it is our intent to be thorough, not adversarial.

We are all in this budget situation together and we see this stepped-up review process as an opportunity to work in consort with the new Governor, his Treasurer, and the various agencies of the executive branch.

As a matter of fact, we will be sharing every single comment received with every member of this committee -- emocrat and Republican -- and the State Treasurer, and our colleagues in the Senate.

For this initial hearing, we have invited the State Auditor to apprise us of work his office has performed that might help us identify potential costs savings or spending cuts.

Before we begin talking to the Auditor, I want to extend the courtesy to Assemblyman Malone to make some comments regarding this undertaking.

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