and the long-term cost of a program like stay NJ is being met with even more criticism given some recent sobering budget news the fiscal boom New Jersey has been enjoying the last two years is coming to an end with a looming fiscal crisis waiting in the wings that concern coming from a five-year budget forecast included in a recent report by former Senate President Steve Sweeney's Center for Public Policy at Rowan University here with all the details and more is budget and finance reporter John reitmeyer hey John so how bad a picture is this what did the forecast predict yeah hey Brianna and when you really look at this from that long-range perspective right you have to consider what's planned both on the spending side and what you could expect to receive on the revenue side and then when you map that out over a number of years that's when you start to see these projected gaps between what the state would expect to take in on an annual basis and then all the planned spending that's either on the books now or will soon have to be things like increased funding for New Jersey Transit coming at a time when Revenue sources like the corporation business tax there's a surcharge that's due to expire so on one hand you have projected costs going up on the other hand you have projected revenues at least in some areas going down and and that's what these long-range projections uh bear out but how big of a gap or a shortfall are we talking because when we have a budget that's 53 billion dollars you know 100 million is a lot to you and I but it's a drop in the bucket for something like that that's right and so under you know the the working group at the Sweeney Center did a couple different scenarios and under the one that they found to be most likely to occur we were looking at three to four billion dollar structural gaps starting in the 20 25 fiscal year so right now the governor and lawmakers are in the final stages of negotiations for a budget that will be in place for the 2024 fiscal year that starts on July 1. we're looking at around this time next year maybe planning for some of these gaps and that's under current policies before you even factor in what could be you know the the final pieces of this budget deal that we're expecting now within a matter of days I mean I'm even more struck by this news because it was just recently I mean I believe a week or so ago that you were reporting on tax collections not meeting expectations so even more bad news it's right in that Trend that we've been seeing so tax collections surged coming out of say the the worst months of the covid-19 pandemic but do you expect that to continue it's almost like an individual getting a bonus or maybe a stock dividend and then planning their whole Budget on that and not knowing that that's really just a one-time infusion kind of course correcting right you can't buy a new car or buy the fancy Penthouse apartment based on one year's Surge and so that's sort of what these long-range projections show is what things will look like a few years down the road instead of maybe now in the near term yeah I mentioned at the top stay NJ because that's the most recent proposal but what does this mean for other legislative priorities it just means that the the picture is a lot tighter than it has been so in recent years we get to this point in the budget process in New Jersey's flush with cash New Jersey is not in a fiscal crisis right now the Surplus is robust and the budget's as big as it's ever been but again based on projected spending and where revenues are expected to go over the next few years that's where the gaps start to come in and so it's useful for lawmakers to have this information at their fingertips right now so they don't commit the state to to Big new programs that will cost too much money down the line we will see if that happens John reitmeyer thanks so much you're welcome [Music] [Music]