NJ Legislative Earmarks Up 450% in State Budget Report

New Jersey lawmakers quietly added $860 million in discretionary spending to the state budget in fiscal year 2026, according to a new report from the Garden State Initiative, a nonpartisan nonprofit that tracks state fiscal policy. The report, released March 9, paints a troubling picture of how Trenton’s earmark culture has exploded in recent years, and what that means for taxpayers already straining under the state’s high cost of living.

The report was authored by Thad Calabrese, a finance professor at New York University, and released one day before Gov. Mikie Sherrill delivered her first budget address. The timing was deliberate. New Jersey is staring down a $3 billion budget deficit, and the Garden State Initiative wants Sherrill to put earmark reform at the center of how she responds to it.

The numbers are striking. Legislative earmarks, meaning spending inserted by lawmakers without a governor’s request and often approved without public debate, totaled $2.1 billion across fiscal years 2024 through 2026. The number of private and nonprofit organizations receiving those funds jumped 450 percent in just two years, from 101 organizations in fiscal year 2024 to 462 in fiscal year 2026. That growth happened with little to no standardized review of whether the spending served a genuine public need.

For New Jersey families, the report puts a concrete price on that trend. Earmarked spending now costs households roughly $240 per year above and beyond normal budget items. To put that figure in context, Calabrese’s analysis shows the same money could fund a 4 percent across-the-board income tax cut, pay down 5 percent of the state’s bonded debt, or eliminate income taxes entirely for residents earning $50,000 or less.

Audrey Lane, president of the Garden State Initiative, said the report points to a real choice that state leaders now face. “There is a lot of talk about affordability these days, which is more pronounced with a $3 billion budget deficit this year,” Lane said. “One place for the governor to look is to hold the line on last-minute discretionary spending. Since 2024, the Legislature has added $2.1 billion in politically connected spending without any standard review process, that could otherwise pay down our debt, provide significant tax relief for struggling families and businesses.”

The report also highlights a burst of spending that came in the final days of the Murphy administration. Former Gov. Phil Murphy signed Assembly Bill 6319 on January 20, approving more than $118 million in supplemental appropriations covering nearly 20 projects, most of which had not been included in the original fiscal year 2026 budget. Nearly all of those funds will flow through to third parties as grants or state aid. The Garden State Initiative updated its public budget tracker, NJBUDGET.COM, this week to reflect that new data.

Earmark reform is not a new issue for Sherrill. On her first day in office, she signed six executive orders, and one addressed budget transparency directly. The Garden State Initiative’s report adds urgency to that pledge. The nonprofit argues that the current system, where funding decisions get made behind closed doors without data-driven criteria, creates conditions where political connections matter more than demonstrated community need.

That concern should resonate beyond good-government circles. New Jersey businesses depend on fiscal predictability when making investment and hiring decisions. When hundreds of millions of dollars shift around in the final weeks of a budget cycle based on relationships rather than policy priorities, it becomes harder to plan. For companies already weighing the cost of doing business here against options in other states, that unpredictability adds to a long list of concerns.

New Jersey workers and families feel the effects too, even when they cannot see the mechanism. A state that spends $2.1 billion in three years on largely unvetted discretionary programs is a state that cannot afford the debt relief, tax cuts, or structural investments that would actually improve affordability.

Sherrill has an opening to act. The question is whether she uses the budget process to demand the kind of accountability this report calls for, or whether the earmark machinery that has run for years in Trenton simply keeps running.