well we're full swing into budget season right now as lawmakers begin to hammer out the details of the State's record 53.1 billion dollar spending plan some of the key items in Governor Murphy's budget proposal for the next fiscal year nearly 11 billion dollars in state aid for schools property tax relief for homeowners and renters increased child tax credits and 10 billion dollars in reserves and while lawmakers prepare to battle it out senior political correspondent David Cruz was at today's first budget hearing at Ramapo College where the public lined up to take their shot at how the money should be spent like a spring training blow game the first budget session of the year is an opportunity for non-profits interest groups and service organizations to work on their pitching please support the proposed three percent across the board Cola increase for DDD Community providers in addition to the annual wage increase for dsps and supervisors and the proposed annualized rate increase for support coordination I come before you today to respectfully request that the legislature increase State funding for the Red Cross from the 1 million in the governor's proposed budget to 2 million to help us continue to advance to enhance vital Services we're asking for 10 million dollars to be invested in developing additional Partnerships between community colleges and developing those pipelines into the education Workforce as well but it wouldn't be budget season if there wasn't an animated discussion about the school funding formula and school districts that have lost state aid even after or especially after the Senate voted to approve restoring 102 million of it to selected districts yesterday my testimony that I turned into you looks pretty much the same every single year we've been asking over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again something that desperately and definitely needs to be done you know there's no way that any school district can prepare for a level of cut like 53 percent we have cut 112 positions I've cut over 15 percent of my administrative staff we are the lowest spending District in Monmouth County even though we are we are supposed to be the most expensive District having only high school students members I'll give everybody one but we don't want to debate everything I know because we'll be here all morning on school funding and there's a lot of other issues I understand and you had your time everybody had their time yesterday so I I think this is one of the most important things we have to deal with this year uh in this budget and certainly from a perspective of public policy over the past few years we should have dealt with this we shouldn't be here this year should have been done years ago needless to say the school funding conundrum was not solved at this meeting the reality is that aside from some nipping and tucking around the edges this election year budget is mostly set there will however be a flurry of earmarks or Christmas Tree items or more commonly pork added in the final hours of the Season sort of like a wild card Senator Testa from the minority party lamenting their very existence in a world where schools have to go begging for crayons the governor proposed a budget with more than 100 special line items for favored towns our schools and counties outside of any Fair formula or process 12 million dollars for a new French Arts Museum in Jersey City Middlesex County votec 5 million dollars Middlesex County Community College 20 million dollars for artificial Sports Fields including a cricket and Rugby Club field Neptune Township one hundred thousand dollars for unknown Capital project Bard High School in Newark Hillsborough School District 626 thousand dollars I I just I find it difficult to balance those line items when there are schools that have very very special needs this budget stands at just over 53 billion dollars right now but it's early and in an election year with the state still flush with Federal covid cash that number could change as Democrats who control the purse strings get into mid-season form I'm David Cruz NJ Spotlight news