Gov. Murphy touts accomplishments in final legislative address

by Nikita Biryukov, New Jersey Monitor

Gov. Phil Murphy touted accomplishments and recalled late members of his administration in his final state of the state address Tuesday.

Murphy, a Democrat who leaves office at noon on Jan. 20 after eight years as New Jersey’s chief executive, trumpeted measures that expanded the state’s paid family leave programs, nearly doubled its wage floor, and shored up state reserves after decades of bipartisan neglect.

“We proved that when we live by our Jersey values, our state government can serve the needs of working people, first and foremost,” he told a joint legislative session Tuesday. “And it is thanks to everything that we have accomplished over these past eight years that, today, we are a state brimming with opportunity for all.”

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Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat, succeeds Murphy on Jan. 20.

Murphy noted advancements in school funding made in his budgets, which boosted state school aid by nearly $4 billion from the final spending bill under his predecessor, Chris Christie.

The governor also extolled tax relief programs passed under his administration. Those include the Anchor program, which offers property tax rebates between $1,000 and $1,750 for homeowners or $450 to $750 for renters, and StayNJ, which promises to cut up to $3,250 from seniors’ property tax bills this year.

“Today in New Jersey, there are grandparents who can finally afford to retire here at home instead of moving elsewhere, so they can stay close to their kids and their grandkids and form memories that will last a lifetime,” Murphy said.

But he acknowledged that New Jersey remained an expensive place to live.

“We have not solved all of our problems. The sad fact is our families are still being squeezed by an affordability crisis that has swept across every community in the nation,” he said.

Murphy lauded his handling of state finances. His administration has made five full pension payments — the first in a quarter-century following neglect by Democratic and Republican administrations — and raised the state’s surplus to roughly $6.8 billion, from about $409 million in fiscal 2018.

Murphy, who in 2021 became the first Democratic New Jersey governor to win reelection in four decades, cautioned that progress could be erased if appropriators return to past fiscal practices.

“My point here is not to pat ourselves on the back. It’s to offer a word of caution. It took eight years of diligent, disciplined leadership, by a lot of us by the way, to get our fiscal house in order and to build a state that is trusted again,” he said. “But folks, if we lose our focus, all of the progress that we made could be wiped away.”

Responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars was a duty, he said, not an option.

He also touted investments in artificial intelligence and state strategic innovation centers, which he has predicted will be among his most lasting accomplishments. Those centers, in coordination with universities and private firms, use public dollars to boost growth in targeted industries like AI, biotech, and avionics, among others.

He recalled the late Dick Codey, a former legislator and acting governor who died Sunday and numbered among his top allies in the Senate earlier in the governor’s tenure, and Sheila Oliver, who was lieutenant governor under Murphy until her death in 2023.

“No matter what obstacles we faced, we were who we said we’d be,  and did what we said we’d do. And when I say ‘we,’ I mean it,” the governor said.