SENATE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION No. 90

STATE OF NEW JERSEY

INTRODUCED SEPTEMBER 19, 1996

By Senators KENNY, LIPMAN, Adler, Sacco, Baer, MacInnes, Casey, Lesniak, O'Connor, Girgenti, Rice, Bryant, Lynch and Zane

A Concurrent Resolution overriding a line-item veto of a language provision concerning an appropriation for the Productivity and Efficiency program in the Department of the Treasury.

    Be It Resolved by the Senate of the State of New Jersey (the General Assembly concurring):

    1. That the following language provision, on page 103 of Senate Bill No.3 of 1996 (P.L.1996, c.42), which was the subject of objection by the Governor in her veto statement of June 28, 1996, be restored to law as follows, the objections thereto of the Governor notwithstanding:

DIRECT STATE SERVICES

82 DEPARTMENT OF TREASURY

76 Management and Administration

The unexpended balance in excess of $3,000,000 in the Productivity and Efficiency Program is appropriated for the same purpose.

    2. BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that copies of this resolution be delivered to the Governor and the State Treasurer.

STATEMENT

    This resolution restores a language provision in the annual appropriations act for Fiscal Year 1997 that was the subject of the Governor's line item veto. That language provision limits the amount of the unexpended balance in the Fiscal Year 1996 Productivity and Efficiency program appropriation in the Department of the Treasury that is appropriated for the same purpose in Fiscal Year 1997. According to the Governor's veto statement, "[l]anguage appropriating the unexpended balance in the Productivity and Efficiency Program that is in excess of $3,000,000 is amended to remove the $3,000,000 threshold." The removal of the threshold by the line-item veto has the effect of increasing the appropriation authorized for this program. The line item veto increases the appropriation by the $3,000,000 that is available in unexpended appropriation balances originally authorized for this program in Fiscal Year 1996.

    The New Jersey Supreme Court has previously stated that the exercise of the line-item veto power "in the most traditional and long-sanctioned sense" is the "effectuation of a reduction of [an]...appropriation..." Karcher v. Kean, 97 N.J. 483, 497 (1984). The increase of an appropriation through a gubernatorial line-item veto may violate the longstanding constitutional authority of the executive only to reduce or eliminate specific appropriations.

    Also, the line item veto of this threshold removes a limitation on this appropriation that was originally proposed by the Governor on page D-357 of the Governor's Budget Recommendations made to the Legislature on January 29, 1996.

Overrides Governor's line-item veto of a language provision concerning an appropriation for the Productivity and Efficiency program in the Department of the Treasury.