Murphy presents $58.05 billion final budget, pledges record tax relief and full pension payments

Trenton — Gov. Phil Murphy presented his administration—s final budget proposal to a joint session of the New Jersey Legislature, urging lawmakers to approve a $58,050,000,000 spending plan that he said prioritizes record tax relief, full pension payments and investments in housing, transit, health care and workforce development.

Murphy said the budget would deliver another round of property- and renter-tax relief, expand child- and maternal-health programs, and include a surplus that he called necessary to protect the state from federal uncertainty. "With this budget, we will continue making historic progress in meeting our sacred obligations to the people of New Jersey," Murphy said.

The proposal, presented in Murphy's final year in office, matters because it frames spending priorities that the next governor and the Legislature will consider. Murphy emphasized that the package is intended to both provide immediate relief to working families and shrink the state's structural deficit by making the full annual pension payment.

Murphy highlighted several headline items in the address: a $58.05 billion total budget; a stated surplus of more than $6.3 billion; a plan to make the full pension payment and thereby reduce long-term liabilities; record property-…