in our Spotlight on Business Report this year's record high state budget has already been in effect for more than a month but dozens of last-minute spending requests submitted in secret by lawmakers are still being kept hidden from the public in all more than a billion dollars was added to the Murphy administration's final spending plan primarily by Democratic legislators who were in The majority at the State House budget and finance writer John reitmeyer has been following the money and he joins me now so John uh great to talk to you about this um let's discuss these what we like to call Christmas Tree items and what we know about them that's right and so we are in in August but the the sentiment when we get to the end of June in the state house is very much the the holiday spirit because that's the time when lawmakers are adding new spending to the final draft of the budget that the governor has come up with and submitted to the legislature and this year that was was a hefty amount this year we saw more than a billion in new spending added to to the governor's final draft and so what we know is the items themselves because we have a copy of what became the spending Bill and so we know all the additions and we know how much they ended up costing that over a billion number which pushed this year's budget up to the the largest in State history what we don't know and lawmakers are supposed to fill out forms that indicate this is the individual sponsors for each spending item and any explanation that justifies why this should be funded versus some other thing so that there's some transparency here we'll see what these projects are that they're adding and there's also supposed to be a disclosure of any personal or business or family ties to whatever you're submitting for funding or making a key language change in the budget that would be to the advantage of some project or some other Endeavor in in usually it's in a legislative district of a lawmaker so how is it possible that they've been able to keep these items items hidden from the public to this point it's a good question so the legislative rules require a written what they call a budget resolution that documents all of this what it doesn't give us is a really precise timeline for when they should be made public only that they should eventually be made public and so when this process was first established lawmakers and the governor at the time made sure this happened would submit these requests well before the final votes on the budget occurred in the state house now what we're seeing happen is the final votes occur and then weeks or months even later we find out who put in these requests for additional spending and and what their explanations were if they include those explanations even sometimes we don't is there any chance we're going to get these before the November election which is on a lot of folks Minds because all 120 legislators are on the ballot is there a chance that they'll try to keep some of these under wrap some of these items that maybe benefit fit a lawmaker's district I I don't think so I think they've been trending with disclosure coming you know a month or so or two after the budget is enacted and so I think that from what I'm hearing they'll probably you know on course to maybe follow the same Trend which would be like a late summer you know a time when not too too many people are paying much attention except for you except for us but this is also an election year and so we've already seen lawmakers out there saying maybe on social media or in news releases hey I got funding for this you know I brought the home funding for this key project in my district and so we may we're already seeing some of that so I think in the run-up to the election we may see this portrayed as as sort of doing their job you know getting State funding for key projects in their legislative districts all right our budget and finance writer John reitmeyer thanks John you're welcome thank you [Music]