New Jersey governor’s proposed budget includes ‘significant’ IT upgrades
New Jersey would make “significant upgrades” to its information technology systems if Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s budget recommendations are adopted, according to a proposal her office unveiled Tuesday.
According to a “budget in brief” document summarizing her proposal for fiscal year 2027, state technology upgrades would include $3 million for the state’s consumer affairs division to upgrade its licensing system and complaint database. Such upgrades are aligned with central planks of Sherrill’s campaign: making it more affordable to live in the state, protecting children and forging a state government that is accountable, transparent and, above all, oriented around service.
“I know what well-run government can do. It’s life-changing,” Sherrill said from the podium Tuesday during her inaugural budget address in Trenton. “And I know what people can lose when government fails. I’ve seen it in my own family. My grandfather’s parents lost everything in the Great Depression.”
Her proposal proclaims that the governor is “committed to making state government more accountable to the people it serves,” a reference to an additional $13.3 million for the state’s Innovation Authority and its New Jersey Report Card, a website fed by data from across the state, designed to keep tabs on how agencies are performing. (A press release from Sherill’s office explaining the website notes that “with cuts from Washington, New Jersey faces a lot of challenges – but we’ve never backed down from a fight, and we are rising to the mission with a ruthless focus on expanding opportunity for the middle class.”) The new funding would also support reductions in business registration fees and improvements to “procurement assistance for minority and women-owned businesses.”
Sherrill’s budget would also follow through on campaign promises to instate additional online safeguards for children. The proposal says a new Office of Youth Online Mental Health Safety and Awareness would “protect our children from Big Tech and the addictive influence of social media.” The proposal also reiterates her support of school districts “as they prepare for the first cell phone free school year this fall.”
During her address on Tuesday, Sherrill continued her feud with the president, whose Justice Department last month sued her and the State of New Jersey over an executive order in which she limited where federal immigration officials may operate, though this time her complaint was of how Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act has strained state budgets: “Because his H.R. 1 law makes people jump through hoops to stay on Medicaid, 300,000 more New Jerseyans will be kicked off.”
Sherrill’s budget would fund “new technology to help people meet Trump’s burdensome paperwork requirements. But many families will still lose coverage,” she said Tuesday. Her speech was laden with the many challenges the state faces, or has recently faced: a “broken budget,” “two historic snowstorms,” “tough choices” she’ll be forced to make as part of an effort to make the state more affordable and a president who, she is eager to persuade her public, does not have their interests at heart. But the former Navy helicopter pilot balanced her mentions of the state’s challenges with calls for steadfastness, once with aid from an oft-parroted mantra of the SEALs: “The only easy day was yesterday.”
