>> From NJ PBS studios, this is NJ Spotlight News with Brianna Vannozzi.

>> Hello and thanks for joining us tonight.

I'm Joanna Gaggis.

Brianna Vannozzi is off.

Coming up, we continue our coverage of America's 250th anniversary with a look at the untold stories of the American Revolution.

But first, today is the budget deadline.

The final bill is moving through the legislature and Governor Sherrill has until midnight to sign it.

We'll take a look at what's in it and get Republicans' reactions to it.

That's next.

Major funding for NJ Spotlight News is provided in part by NJM Insurance Group, serving the insurance needs of residents and businesses for more than 100 years.

-The legislature has until midnight tonight to officially pass the state budget for the next fiscal year.

Now, the record 60.7 billion dollar budget is the first of Governor Sherrill's term, but what's been proposed with supplemental spending brings the total amount to more than 61 billion dollars.

So, where's the money going?

Here with us to break it all down about what we know so far is Micah Rasmussen, Director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University.

Micah, great to see you once again.

Maybe no surprise, we have a budget being voted on in the final day of the fiscal year.

Can you give us just the high-level breakdown of what we see in this budget?

Well, it's Governor Sherrill's first budget, and that's important.

This is her first year of executive power.

She's been on the other side of the negotiations up until now.

And so the legislature, the legislative leaders, they have been around a while.

They know what their priorities are.

Speaker Kaplan wanted to preserve Stay NJ, that property tax relief program for seniors.

The Senate President, Scutari, wanted to maintain the child care tax credit.

So those are their imperatives.

For her, she wanted to keep the size of the budget as she proposed.

And she was able to do that.

So that's a victory.

She can take that for what she wants to.

She also said she didn't want to raise taxes on New Jerseyans.

That seems to be the case, but she didn't get everything she wanted.

Certainly.

We've got continued legislative priorities, those Christmas tree items, pork, if you want to call it that, $350 million worth.

And so that was something she wanted to rein in on.

We'll have to see.

Your first budget is maybe your best chance at impressing, you know, the new person, the new way of doing things.

We'll see if she gets her hands any more around that in future budgets.

So interesting that you say she wanted to keep it at 60.7 billion and she did on paper.

Right.

But that supplemental pork spending bill as we call it colloquially here it adds on that 360 million into the current fiscal year.

Is that a sleight of hand that a lot of voters aren't going to realize what just happened?

It is a distinction without a difference.

Here's what's interesting about the supplemental.

Obviously she reached a global settlement a compromise with legislative leaders.

Apparently that legislative priority that spending is part of that deal.

But there's a separate bill she could if she wanted to veto the supplemental without jeopardizing having a budget in place by tonight.

You know, obviously she's got her compromise, but it does separate out the two issues if she wants to move forward with the budget.

I guess we shouldn't hold our breath for that.

That's a great point that you raise it does give her in some way, a little more leverage when it comes to how she how she signs this bill.

Stan, Jay, you mentioned there obviously were some changes that were negotiated there.

They kept the highest level of reimbursement, $6,500 for those making $100,000 or less, $5,000 for those $100,000 to $150,000, $4,000 for $150,000 and higher to $200,000.

I just want to get a sense from you, how much you think negotiations there held up this process, or do you think that it was always going to come down to the wire?

We know, and we've talked behind the scenes, that that was the big sticking point.

Do you think that that slowed down getting a budget where we are now in this final day?

I'm sure landing on a final number was the sticking point, but there was never really a question that some means testing was going to be part of the deal.

It was just too big of a number.

$500,000 in income certainly is one that Democrats were willing to get behind and say, "We can adjust that.

We can still reach middle-class families."

And we'll see.

I mean, the revisions to the program apparently only let about 40,000 seniors, about 10% of the people who claimed it in the past, all out of the program.

That's not inconsiderate, but inconsiderable, but it's still something.

You know, these programs tend to be the most supported when they reach the most people.

The more you limit it down, it's like Social Security or anything else, the more universal they are, the more popular they are.

You talked about no taxes being raised here, and we've heard from the business community and from Republicans who say, "Well, if you're giving a tax or changing tax credits for businesses, then you're essentially passing a tax on to consumers."

We do see this change to the alternative business calculation in terms of how much companies can claim.

Do you see that as having some type of ripple effect where consumers are going to feel it and there could be some backlash here.

Yeah you know some of these business tax adjustments if you want to call them that.

And you know I think Governor Sherrill was careful to say she was not raising taxes on New Jerseyans.

Right.

And so that's not the same thing as saying no taxes period.

She wanted to preserve affordability for those that she could to the maximum extent possible.

Some of these business adjustments have to do with whether or not a business is paying for health care for its employees or its employees are getting Medicaid coverage and it would charge a penalty per employee that's on Medicaid.

So some of those they clearly feel are defensible, but you know what?

Businesses are going to pass along the costs that they have to pass along.

That may have an impact on affordability.

It could have an impact on where businesses choose to stay and do business.

Just a little bit of time left.

When we look at this supplemental spending bill, we do see very specific allocations for towns.

I'm going to point some out.

One million in park upgrades to Sayreville, 2.2 million in operating aid to Linden.

That is of course, Senate President Scutari's hometown.

Five million for a rec center in Woodridge.

That is where Senator Paul Starlow is the mayor.

How much of this do you think gets into that final signed approved deal by the governor?

Yeah, I think it is going to get through and it's really not a great process because Daniel Hahn from Politico did a study and showed that your ability to get those earmarks really depend on whether or not you work with a legislator, a legislator, their law firm does business with your town, represents your town, whether or not there's somebody on the payroll.

And so that's not a great process because everybody else, the rest of us, are paying for those earmarks.

So it's not a standardized process.

And that's what she was looking for.

Hopefully we can maybe get to that more in the future.

All right.

We've got to leave it there.

Plenty more to dissect as we go.

Mike Erasmusson, director of the Republic Institute at Rider University.

Thank you.

Thank you.

As the budget makes its way to Governor Sherrill's desk, Republicans are criticizing the administration for a lack of transparency throughout the budget process.

One of those lawmakers is Republican Budget Officer Senator Declan O'Scanlan.

He joins me now to discuss as part of our Under the Dome series.

Senator, thank you so much for taking some time to talk to us.

I know this will be a busy day and night for you.

You're headed into a floor vote tonight.

The Senate and the Assembly will vote on this budget bill.

We're going to talk process in just a minute, but I want to talk substance of the bill.

What do you like about this budget bill?

What don't you like?

Well, look, I like the fact that we do fund much essential services, et cetera.

And that all goes without saying.

There's many areas that I don't like.

I don't like the fact that we're spending $2 billion more this year than last year and calling this an affordability budget.

Call it whatever you want.

At the federal level, we passed the Inflation Reduction Act.

They called it the Inflation Reduction Act, but everything in the bill caused more inflation.

This is not an affordability budget.

I don't like the fact that despite the claims of the governor and legislative leadership of just weeks ago, we're going to see it larded with hundreds of millions of dollars in special project pork.

And that's a shame.

It's a shame.

And then there's things that aren't funded.

I think we still fail to fund services for Tourette's, et cetera.

So while we're funding these special pork projects of cricket fields and sports stadiums, we're failing to fund essential things like health services, the school funding formula, which directly relates to property taxes.

Hundreds of districts throughout New Jersey are getting screwed, quite frankly.

There's no reason for it.

It's a shame.

So there is much that we don't like about this budget.

So lots to talk about.

Let me let me break down a couple of things.

High level.

This cuts the structural deficit down to one point four billion.

I know there is still a structural deficit there.

Six billion in reserves.

I just I do have to just jump in real quick.

Again, we can't fall for the simple claims of the administration or legislative leadership to.

We can't assume these things are true.

We're already uncovering a whole batch of things that were shoved into the supplemental, which is more money into last year's budget.

To avoid those things in this year's budget, and one-shot deals, and manipulated COVID money, the structural deficit, I bet you when all is said and done, is over $3 billion, just for the record.

So, no, I won't address that premise.

It's a great point that you raise, because we see this supplemental spending bill, what we would typically call Christmas tree items or pork barrel spending, usually is added on to the budget at the end of the process.

As you just said, this was added on to the current fiscal year, close to $316 million.

A lot of those were individual, you know, funding for individual municipalities.

You take issue with that.

So yes, again, the vast majority of our listeners live in municipalities that get none of that money.

That money is directed into towns and counties and school districts of the very few powerful people in the legislature, while the rest of the pretty much 9 million people in New Jersey have to foot the bill for these things and get no benefit.

It's hundreds of millions of dollars, and it's snuck into last year's budget because our revenues overperformed.

Rather than put into this year's budget to give cover to the governor to claim and the legislative leadership, we held the line on the original budget proposal.

No, they didn't.

So it's bogus across the board, and we need to call that out.

And the people of New Jersey need to know this, and need to know just how phony all these claims are.

Do you give the governor any credit for the fact that that number was brought down from about 700 million under the governor under Governor Murphy's administration down to about 360 million under Governor Sherrill.

I don't as we go through.

We are finding and look the previous budgets and the previous cycles.

There wasn't an attempt to hide money that would be in a current budget by putting in a previous budget.

That's kind of a new thing.

The supplementals of years past were actual genuine adjustments to spending that needed to happen in that previous year's budget.

So I don't give a lot of credit to that.

Ultimately, we need to weigh all of this together.

And we should note that the governor, Governor Sherrill, did say that she would not have a budget this year that had any type of pork or add-ons from legislators.

And so we see this added on to the current fiscal year.

Well, exactly.

And look, there is over $600 million in additional spending.

Maybe a couple of hundred million of that is legitimate build back things that you have to build back in for health services, etc.

But $400 million, maybe $450 million, and we'll find more actually buried in other areas that we don't know yet, is blatant pork.

It's pet projects for the powerful.

And that's a problem.

And everyone in New Jersey should be upset about that.

- I want to talk about some specific bills.

All the bills that could be on the floor today for this full Assembly and Senate vote had to be passed through committee on Sunday.

And so I know you worked very late over the weekend.

A couple of bills are pretty controversial.

I want to get your take on one that's split even among Democrats, this Make Polluters Pay Act that would be a retroactive $50 billion fine, essentially, on fossil fuel companies that have been found to contribute to pollution in our state.

What's your take on this bill?

Well, again, the name is designed to throw off any critical thinking about it.

Make polluters pay sounds great.

A guy dumping a container of green slime into a stream, you want that guy to pay.

But if you're going to look at this bill and its reality, the people that are going to pay for it are every taxpayer, every person that buys fuel, every person that uses anything that's transported with a truck that uses fuel.

The polluters in this case are all of us.

We all have made our society on the backs of fossil fuels.

There's no way around it.

These companies delivered products that we wanted.

They operated legally.

And now we're going to retroactively punish them, but it won't be punishing them, punish us for using these products.

Our fuel costs will go up.

It will be a direct pass through.

The profits of these companies aren't going to go down because of this.

It is absolutely bogus to suggest that.

I asked- Let me jump in here, Senator.

We have just a minute left.

And I just want to ask, I know that there are some, you take issue with some of the business tax caps, write off caps that are in there, but we only have a minute left.

And I know that you've used your social media platform to talk about transparency or what you say is a lack thereof.

How could this budget process look different in your mind, look better?

Where I governor the budget would be on publicly available by June 1st, maybe latest June 7th.

And I would say to the legislative leadership, if you are beyond that date, I won't sign it.

You will shut the government down until the public has had several weeks to digest it.

And then when I get it, I'm going to use my pen.

I'm going to line item out every single project.

And, well, if I'm governor and we have a Republican legislature, we wouldn't need to worry about this.

But assuming it's Democrats and there's hundreds of millions of dollars of pork, I say, "I'm coming after your pet projects.

I will line item specifically everyone out."

You know what would happen if a governor took that stance?

You'd have a budget for the public by June 7th.

The governor's wildly powerful.

It's an easy way to do that.

That's what should have happened here.

And according to the governor's own words on the campaign trail, and since, it's what should have happened.

It was her promise.

We have to leave it there.

I'm sorry to interrupt you, but Senator Declan O'Scanlan, Republican Budget Officer, I know you've got a late night ahead of you, but thank you so much for being with us.

Appreciate the opportunity.

Thanks.

Under the Dome is made possible in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people.

♪ >> As the nation marks its 250th anniversary, New Jersey historians have been working to highlight many of the New Jerseyans who contributed to creating our nation.

Revolution NJ has been leading that effort with the help of an advisory council that's bringing to light many of the stories not often told as part of that history.

I recently spoke with Linda Caldwell-Epps, co-chair of the Revolution NJ Advisory Council, about some of those stories.

Linda, it's so great to have you on the show.

I know that you've played a critical role in helping the New Jersey Historical Commission really plan how it's going to celebrate the 250th anniversary.

They turn to you and your co-chair for guidance.

Can you just help us understand what kind of guidance you offered to them?

Well, my goal when I agreed to work with them, well, first of all, thank you for having me on.

And my goal in agreeing to work with them is that we draw a connection between the past and the present.

That this is not just a celebration of what happened in 1776, but it's a commemoration of what happened.

And it is a recognition of how what happened in 1776 helped determine who we are today and what work we have to do to become even more successful in fulfilling the vision and the mission that our forefathers and mothers had for us as a country.

- This is a process that folks might not understand.

Took years and years to put together.

I know you worked on this yourself and your co-chair for about six years, guiding some of those themes of this commemoration.

As you say, can you talk to us about who played a significant role in the American Revolution that we don't always think about?

- Okay, well, there were many people.

We often study history through the lens of white men, not understanding the role of women, the role of children, the role of the indigenous people, the role of the African-Americans who by far and large were enslaved during that time period.

And in truth, all of those that I mentioned played a very active and very important role in on both sides, whether you were a patriot or a loyalist, those groups of people that I mentioned were involved in that particular war.

And it is to all of them that we owe a debt of gratitude or not, depending upon who you are and what your feelings are about the issue.

They have-- - Can you give us, Linda, can you give us a couple examples?

Give me one or two really solid examples.

I'm curious in particular about enslaved people who played a significant role in the war.

- It is estimated that on both the patriot side and the loyalist side, there were up to 10,000, perhaps more, people who were enslaved or people of color who played a very important role in that war.

The Battle of Monmouth alone had two people that we actually have names of.

One is Colonel Ty who fought for the Loyalists and Cujo Banquante who fought for the Patriots.

Cujo Banquante was enslaved, was captured and brought here in 1725.

He was a young man, but he enlisted in 1777, right after Washington and Army crossed the Delaware, and he served for the duration of the war, valiantly I might add.

Colonel Ty, who resided in Monmouth County, actually escaped.

He was a runaway slave because he heard about Lord Dunmore's decree, the British decree, to free all men of African descent who fought on the side of the Loyalists.

So he made it on foot to Virginia, where Lord Dunmore was, stayed there for two years, came back to New Jersey, Monmouth County in particular, with an interracial group of soldiers with him who really tore up Monmouth County, serving, incorporating guerrilla warfare into the fight in Monmouth County.

Those are just two examples.

The state of Long Island had an entire regiment that consisted of Africans, both slave and enfreed, who fought during the war.

I guess the major difference between the two parties is that the loyalists tried to make good on their promise to award freedom to those who had formerly been enslaved and they relocated them to Nova Scotia, some to Angola, and some to Quebec and other cities in Canada.

The Britons had already outlawed slavery.

But Washington and those of the patriots did not hold good on that promise by and large.

There were some who received their freedom individually from their masters like Hugo Benquante, but others who were returned into servitude.

I know that there's an exhibit that's in Princeton called the Five Independent Souls, and it really deals with some of the complexities of people who signed the Declaration of Independence.

Can you put that into context with what their intent was and what we see today?

It was really a contradiction, right?

Especially since the Declaration of Independence, that second paragraph starts, you know, "All men are created equal," etc., etc.

And it's obvious that we did not consider all men as created equal, although we did have indentured servitude, where whites were indentured servants, they eventually would receive their freedom as, but for those who were enslaved, they were in slavery for life, unless their particular owner decided to give them their freedom.

And if you, the law in some states or colonies was that if you remained free for over a year where you were, that you could be re-enslaved again.

So that's a great contradiction right there.

They refuse to categorize people of African descent as fully human, as full men and women.

And really the perception of that did not change significantly until 1965 with Johnson's War on Poverty and the Civil Rights Act passed.

But we're still fighting that battle today for full equality for all groups.

It's the same thing with the indigenous peoples.

They were not automatically awarded full citizenship.

They were not given the right to vote, which meant that they were also not included in that all men are created equal.

And many of them fought valiantly during the Revolutionary War, as well as other wars and skirmishes that occurred on what became the United States of American soil.

Yeah.

And those five independent souls were five New Jerseyans who did sign the Declaration of Independence.

And as you said, they certainly were.

And what we have found with recent history is that some of them were wealthy men and gentle, had gentlemanly status because they also owned plantations in the South.

And some of their wealth was derived from slavery.

Such important pieces of our history that we all should be looking into as we take this moment to commemorate 250 years.

Linda Caldwell Epps, can't thank you enough for your perspective.

Thank you.

Well thank you again for having me.

Before we leave you tonight, today is the last day that WNET will operate NJPBS.

Behind the scenes, the operation will move over to Montclair State University as appointed by the New Jersey Public Broadcasting Authority.

But we will continue to bring you this show, this version of our news show, until September 30th.

And we couldn't have done this show for all these years without the steady support of three very special members of our crew who we say goodbye to today.

Our longtime control room staff, Mark Nixdorf, Matt McNamara, and Cody Louie.

Thank you, and we'll miss you.

That's going to do it for us tonight.

I'm Joanna Gaggis.

For for all of the team here at NJ Spotlight News.

Thanks for being with us.

We'll see you right back here tomorrow.

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